The Debt
by Flyza
Summary: It's five years after Mockingjay, and Gale realizes that the he can't avoid the past forever. Some dark themes and language.
1. Chapter 1

**—** **Five Years After The War—**

My first thought is of drowning.

Drowning in the slow, blue pulsating light. Everything feels soft-edged and shimmery, and I can just imagine closing my eyes and drifting off into a watery, dreamless sleep. I feel my eyes want to slide closed. A dreamless sleep. What would that be like?

But instead I stride forward, pushing those thoughts harshly away. I have work to do.

I've always hated these places. The strange, otherworldly lounges and clubs where the majority of the real New Capitol politicking happens. Not in the voting booth, not at the President's round table, and certainly not in the public eye.

No, New Capitol politics are eerily similar to those of the Old Capitol. Behind closed doors, in opulent clubs, and under bed sheets. Tricks and politics. Networking and cash and cashing in your influence.

Sometimes at these informal meetings, my mind will flit to Katniss, her memory a dull ache in my chest, heavy like a stone. How she would sneer at my uniform and my fancy job, _Head of New Panem Security._ How she would laugh at all the politicians and rich merchants fawning and scraping for a favor from _Captain Gale Hawthorne._

A part of me hates her for leaving me alone with all this political bullshit. For choosing her frosting prince and returning home to a life of peace and healing and lazy mornings in the forest. And a part of me hates myself for being so selfish, for minimizing her pain, for still wishing that broken, empty shell of a girl had chosen me.

Yes of course Katniss needed to heal. But so did I. And she left me to mourn by myself. Prim and my friends and my home and my old life. And Rory, who still refuses to see me, bitter blame burning black in the depths of his eyes. And my mother who loves me but thinks _"it's better if you stay away a little longer, to give the kids more time._ " As if I don't feel guilty already. As if I never loved Prim at all. As if I wouldn't do anything to trade my life for hers. As if I didn't work my ass off to help her survive when Katniss was gone. As if I didn't bury myself every day in those mines to feed and clothe and protect those kids. As if I didn't sacrifice everything to be the dad they never had.

It's like you make one mistake and all the good you did before isn't enough to outweigh it.

I would know. I can't forgive me either.

So I made that unforgivable mistake, designing that bomb. But damn it, I was trying to win a war.

And if I can't be forgiven, then at least I'll make the sacrifice worth it. I'll put on the monkey suit and knot the tie, tight like a noose on my neck, and I'll go to the meetings and the press conferences and on the covert missions and I'll grit my teeth and do the work. I'll keep my family and this country safe whether I get thanked for it or not.

And hell, I hate to admit it, but I'm good at this. The politics and the games and the traps, snares of a different, more sinister, kind.

But I still hate places like this, an absurd New Capitol theme bar. I allow my eyes to brush across the room: women and men with astonishingly neon-painted skin, bouffant hairstyles bursting with startling flitting butterflies or impossible blooming flowers, fingers and throats encrusted with jewels like glittering crustaceans; murmured conversation and clinking drinks. A long glass bar emanates a silver crystal light, the endless colored bottles, phials, and vials filled with the most vivid and exotic liqueurs, winking like buried treasure. Black-clad servers hand out bubbling concoctions, simmering with gold leaf, clinking with blood red ice cubes, or poofing blue smoke.

And all the little men are here, grasping politicians and rich tycoons. Greasy hair and smiles that are all teeth, eyes shifting, calculating, glittering like knives.

They love places like these. Dark corners and shadowed booths and wildly expensive drinks, perfect for whispered conversations and slithering smiles and the passing over of a bag of coins.

And well I don't mind so much; these places do have some of the most exclusive intoxicants in the world.

So after the hushed words and secretive exchanges and lies bitten behind my teeth, the unctuous deal-making settling on my skin like a greasy film, I allow myself a few drinks and a little rest. And maybe I'll allow myself something else sweet later because hell, I've earned it.

This time when I think of drowning, no one stops me.

The drinks have made me drowsy and slow, and all the laughing and inane chatter mellow and soften into pleasant background noise.

The blue light pulses dreamily, reflecting off the iridescent scales of the barstools and tables, shimmering in and out of focus. The walls stretch into the dark distance, glassed-off aquariums of gentle moving water; sinuous and fantastical creatures swim languorously in their depths. There is a large, silver piano in the corner. A woman with a brush of blond hair sits at the instrument in a warm pool of light, singing something rich and deep and throaty and slow. I feel myself floating drunkenly in the glowing, thrumming depths of this ocean fantasy.

A waitress in all black, synthetic and shiny and leaving little to the imagination, hands me a glass of brown liquor, and I can't help thinking ruefully that I used to be able to get a whole bottle of the stuff at the Hob for two squirrels and ball of yarn.

But when I look at my glass, I can't believe I compared it to that horrific swill Sae used to brew in her backyard. I swirl the two fingers of rich brown liquid, clinking gilded ice cubes and a wash of gold-flecked spice. It's almost too beautiful to drink. I take a small sip, and the smoky smooth flavor instantly warms my throat. I feel a relaxed balm course through my body.

Damn, this is good, I concede to myself, my limbs pleasantly languid after just one taste.

A loud surge of clapping crashes through my thoughts like a wave. The blonde woman stands at the piano, her hair a gilded halo in the buttery pool of light, her dress a shimmering column, silvery and slinky and made to draw the eye.

She gives a slow half smile of acknowledgment to the crowd before gliding amongst the patrons, bestowing a wave here and a light touch there like party favors for a select few. Her movements are smooth and languorous and lovely.

And suddenly…I know her.

I sit up abruptly, the blood rushing in my ears.

It can't be. Not after all these years.

She continues weaving her way slowly through the bar. Her movements are unhurried and liquid, the glittering mirrors of her dress reflecting the pulsing light of the club into a halo of rainbow fractals. As she moves closer I notice her glassy eyes and drooping lids. She looks almost sleepy; and I realize with a start that she may be drunk.

She stops a few tables away, bestowing a slow smile at the men sitting there. Her eyes half-lidded, she rests a languid hand on one of their shoulders, the diamonds on her wrist a glittering waterfall against his dark jacket. "Can you do a girl a favor and let her bum a cigarette?" she asks. Her voice is just like her song, a throaty liquid molasses.

"Anything for you, Em," the man smirks and reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulls out an elegant silver case and taps out a cigarette. Her eyes float across the room from under her heavy lashes. As her gaze shift towards me, she freezes, just for an instant. And I see her eyes, their unmistakeable and distinctive blue, harden like ice chips for the briefest moment. She immediately looks away, but I know. I feel my eyes widen as recognition rushes through me.

It's Madge Undersee.

She doesn't acknowledged me, just leans forward for the man to light her cigarette, the tip burns orange and she releases a practiced cloud of smoke, blurring her features. She keeps her eyes down, avoiding my gaze, as she turns and makes her unhurried way towards the bar.

I stare after her, her mirrored dress glinting in the smoke as she glides away, unruffled, unmoved, uninterested.

Something about seeing her takes me back to Twelve. I can still see her house, a pale beacon in the sunshine, towering white columns and manicured lawns and sleek black cars in the sweeping driveway, just a pile of smoking rubble the last time I visited. No one from the Seam had the guts to approach that house; only Katniss and I were dumb enough to try. Sneaking through the back hedgerows, glancing around guiltily for Peacekeeper patrols, hopping the iron fence and slinking to the back gate. I remember the first time me and Katniss knocked on her back door, sweaty palmed, hungry, and trying to hide our fear.

And surprisingly it wasn't a butler or a maid or cook that would usually answer the door. Most often it was her.

Pale skin pinkish and creamy, blue eyes, and fine hair like a weak sun reflected in the lake at dawn. I remember seeing her and _hating_ her. Dresses pressed and new and white while coal dust coated everything we owned, a fine grit embedded in our very skin. Always with a new, glossy ribbon, pastel and satiny and soft. Something you couldn't find, let alone purchase, at the black market even if you promised to cut off your finger in exchange. Well-fed and curvy and clean, so unlike Seam girls, wiry and dark with rough hands and jutting bones.

Oh I hated her. But I'll admit, there was something about her that was terribly fascinating. There always is something fascinating about what you can't have. Like Rory staring longingly at whipped, creamed confections in the baker's window or Posy running a fascinated finger over the milky satin of a dress before Ma would plunge it into the water for a wash. She was those things, creamy chill and milky satin. Cool and aloof and quiet and so untouchable. I never knew that kind of quiet in my life; even at night there were always kids snuffling in the blankets, and Posy sharing my bed, tucked into me like a hot coal, burning my skin. Coughs and snores and the rain clattering on the tin roof, sharp and metallic. Yet her house was always silent and still, refreshingly hushed like an iced drink on a hot day. I hated her for everything she was, everything she had, everything I couldn't give my own family. And yet… I couldn't look away.

I would find myself staring at her under hooded eyes. Always looking for a fault or a crack in her quiet exterior. Telling myself I hated her cleanliness, her pressed dresses, her good health, her ready pile of coins. And damn I hated how cold she was. One flick of her eyes up and down and she'd make you feel low as dirt. But then our fingers would brush as I handed her a bag of berries, and I remember how graceful her hands were. I had never felt fingers so smooth in my life.

The same fingers I felt pressed into my arms once, a long time ago. And a riddle, whispered into my ear, her warm breath hitching in the dark…

I shake my head firmly, pushing that useless memory away. I swallow thickly.

And here she stands. Taller, thinner, still curvy, still graceful. Her hair, paler than I remember, an icy blond in the blue light. Her skin the same frosted porcelain, and her fingers long and elegant and endlessly alluring. A siren rising from the depths of a frozen sea to entice me back to all the painful memories of the past.

And I think maybe I shouldn't go over to the bar. Maybe I should just let her disappear into the smoky blackness of this depraved sea grotto lounge, singing the blues in this little black corner of the world, letting her pass me by like a silent ship gliding in the night.

But a part of me can't help wondering where she's been all this time. How she ended up here of all places.

And who am I kidding. I was never one to let things go.

So I walk over and wave to the bartender that her drink is on me, and I lean one elbow against the bar so I can stand right up next to her. She doesn't acknowledge me, but I see her stiffen just slightly and intake a sharp, tiny breath, and we both know what the other knows.

"Madge Undersee."

"Captain Hawthorne," she says with a drowsy blink, lifting her martini glass in a mock toast, her nails clinking against the cold glass.

"All these years, and no one from Twelve even knows you're alive. Yet here you are," I lean in.

"Twelve?" she gives a bitter bark of laughter and her eyes go blank. "What do I care for District Twelve? None of them cared for me."

"That's not true," I answer in surprise, though I had just been musing how much I hated her mere seconds before. My stomach swoops guiltily. "Katniss cared for you. I, well I—" I stop abruptly, not quite able to finish the thought.

"You what?" A raised eyebrow and a drowsy half smirk. "Can't even get the lie out can you?"

I take a deep breath, annoyed with myself, with her. "Come on, I would have wanted to know you're alive at least. I'd have wanted to know where you were."

And that much I know is true. The question burns in my stomach, tingles on the tip of my tongue. _What happened to you?_

How did she escape the burning District? What really happened to her parents? And, most pressing, it pains me to admit, I wonder what happened to Madge that she ended up like this— tipsy, detached, and empty eyed. Singing bitter songs for pathetic men in a raspy echo. One part sloshed and one part sad.

Madge Undersee was always a mystery, a quiet enigma, never allowing a crack in her facade. That much hasn't changed. Silence and secrets; I never knew what was going on behind those doll-like eyes.

 _Except once…_ a whisper in the back of my mind. I crush that thought angrily.

"Why would I want to remember District Twelve," she continues slowly. She breathes in her cigarette, its orange heat reflected like a haunting fire in her eyes. "Why would you?"

I'm annoyed with her dispassionate tone. And that her cold, indifferent words reflect my thoughts so easily. I hate thinking about my old life in Twelve. But I can't just turn it off, block it out like she so obviously has.

"So no one here knows who you are?" I can feel myself getting angry. "Like our whole lives in Twelve never even happened?" I want to shake her. A part of me hates her. Her bored tone and sleepy, glassy eyes.

"Why talk about the past? Why think about it, even? It's easier this way," she answers in that same indifferent, infuriating voice.

"What happened to you, Madge?" I grind out. She was exasperating in Twelve, but this disinterested, apathetic version of her is much worse.

"What happened to me?" She smiles and exhales a cloud of smoke. "Life, baby. Same as everyone."

"That's not what I mean and you know it. What happened to you after I-, after we-," I stutter, unable to find the right words. I take a deep breath. "Madge, you know what I'm asking."

She takes long drink from her glass, her dark lashes fluttering closed, avoiding my eyes. She sets the glass down delicately and gives me a sad, boozy kind of half smile.

"After the bombing of Twelve…well…" she pauses. "Well I just wanted to be invisible for a while," her speech is slower, more drawn out than I remember, an almost sleepy drawl. "Being anonymous…it feels safer somehow."

"Being anonymous," I roll the thought around in my mind. "Being anonymous I can understand. But this, not telling a soul you're still alive—" my voice almost cracks and I stop myself suddenly. "What are you going to do? Hide behind your piano forever?" The words come out harsher than I meant.

"I'm used to hiding behind my piano," she answers with a small smile. "I mean just at home...just when mother…" Her face closes off suddenly, her eyes flat as mirrors. "It was a long time ago. You wouldn't know anything about it." And just as suddenly her faces clears, "I tried to teach Katniss you know, before her Victory Tour. She didn't have the patience for it. I don't think she found it useful."

I feel a jolt of surprise. I try to think all the way back to those days. I can't remember ever knowing Madge played piano. Or that her and Katniss were such good friends. All I can conjure from those days are hazy memories: the ache in my heart, a painful longing for Katniss, a nebulous dissatisfaction, hard to define. And the mines, dark and dusty and claustrophobic, the never-ending work, the liquid, throbbing fatigue, and a bone-deep sadness, chipping at the dust of my father's bones buried with the coal in the walls.

The unexpected memories of home make me go surprisingly soft. And I look at Madge and remember how she used to be, so young and innocent and fresh. And with her frosty blond hair and mirrored dress, she looks surprisingly fragile—like a piece of glass, a tiny, breakable thing.

"The usual Ms. Em?" The bartender asks, placing a silver tray in front of Madge. And I'm surprised to see gauze, a rubber band, and syringe.

"It's Morphium," she says, seeing my expression. "Special Capitol engineering. Don't look so worried; it's not addictive like the cheap junk in the Districts." She stubs out her cig. "The war is over. Aren't we all supposed to be having fun?" her words are light, but her smile has a bitter slant, and I feel suddenly very sad.

"Madge. The fake name, the drugs. What are you really hiding from?" I ask quietly, genuinely. She goes still.

"The pain. Same as you."

Then she relaxes and gives me a shrug.

"After what happened to me…" she pauses suddenly. A sigh. A swallow and she looks like she's steeling herself. "I've learned to differentiate every shade of pain, its every subtle variation. And there is no hiding from it, no numbing it."

She reaches for the rubber tourniquet band, and ties it deftly around her upper arm, using her teeth to pull it taut. She picks up the syringe, the clear liquid inside glowing in the hazy blue light. "This. It just makes the world…soft," Her eyes close dreamily, "Like the morning after a heavy snow fall, when everything is new and white and…muffled." And her words make me wonder again just what happened to Madge Undersee during the war.

Her eyes open and with surprising ease, she pierces the soft, bluish skin of her inner arm with the needle and gently drains the syringe. The syringe goes back on the tray. She dabs the droplet of dark blood with a square of gauze in a practiced way, and with a quick swipe of bruise balm the puncture wound disappears. Easy as anything. I feel faintly sick.

"Don't look at me like that, Captain," she glances at me with a frown. "There was a time when you were happy to partake. To numb your own pain." And her voice is sly. It sparks a hazy memory just out of reach. A flash of pain, of cold, and a swirl of snow.

Before I can grasp the memory fully, she is getting up, her dress spraying a wild halo of mirrored light, a silver chameleon, reflecting everything, revealing nothing.

"Pretty dress," I say with a smirk, unthinking.

Her head snaps up to look at me, and I feel a grim satisfaction that I finally elicited some kind of reaction from behind her cool exterior. Recognition flares in her eyes, hot and angry, and she sees me at last. She holds my gaze for a moment, just like back then, and time seems to unwind around us.

But then her eyes cloud over as the drugs take hold, and her eyelids droop, her lashes thick and heavy on the cream of her cheeks. The detached Madge from before returns.

I'm surprised when one pale finger reaches towards me, ghosting along my cheek, unimaginably delicate. And Madge leans forward, a whisper in my ear like frosted steel, _Don't come back here again._

And then she is gliding away, drowsy and unhurried, a silver shard gleaming in the dark. Her movements are smooth and languorous as if she too is one of the untouchable sea creatures undulating through the water, trapped in the walls.

And I know she's right. I shouldn't come back here again.

But a part of me wonders what she's doing here. What she's been doing all this time. Why she would run and hide and not tell anyone she's alive. And something stirs in me, a memory from long ago… _Now we're even_. A murmur in the dark. And the thought that maybe I'll finally understand what she meant when she said those words to me so many years ago.

And like I said, I've never been one to let things go.

...

Guys! What the heck...I can't believe I'm back in this fandom after so many years. Honestly, I can't believe I _left_ this fandom for so many years. I've had this one-shot in my notes for years, honestly since right after Mockingjay was published. So I've finally gotten it together to write it out properly...and as soon as I started, I immediately turned it into a multi-chapter fic...why do I do these things to myself? Regardless, I'm happy to be back. I've certainly missed the Gadge family. I'm way out of practice with writing so pleaseeee let me know what you think. Comments, criticism, and suggestions are much needed and much adored. Lots of love,

-Fly


	2. Chapter 2

**Previously on** ** _The Debt_** **:**

"Pretty dress," I say with a smirk, unthinking.

Her head snaps up to look at me, and I feel a grim satisfaction that I finally elicited some kind of reaction from behind her cool exterior. Recognition flares in her eyes, hot and angry, and she sees me at last. She holds my gaze for a moment, just like back then, and time seems to unwind around us.

But then her eyes cloud over as the drugs take hold, and her eyelids droop, her lashes thick and heavy on the cream of her cheeks. The detached Madge from before returns.

I'm surprised when one pale finger reaches towards me, ghosting along my cheek, unimaginably delicate. And Madge leans forward, a whisper in my ear like frosted steel, _Don't come back here again._

And then she is gliding away, drowsy and unhurried, a silver shard gleaming in the dark. Her movements are smooth and languorous as if she too is one of the untouchable sea creatures undulating through the water, trapped in the walls.

And I know she's right. I shouldn't come back here again.

But a part of me wonders what she's doing here. What she's been doing all this time. Why she would run and hide and not tell anyone she's alive. And something stirs in me, a memory from long ago… _Now we're even_. A murmur in the dark. And the thought that maybe I'll finally understand what she meant when she said those words to me so many years ago.

And like I said, I've never been one to let things go.

…

 **—** **Five Years After the War—**

I refuse to go back and see Madge Undersee.

I hit my desk and do my work and go to my cabinet meetings and patrol the city, but I refuse to return to that strange lounge downtown, that creepy watery fantasy world, and I refuse to see Madge Undersee again

Her eyes stay with me though, glassy and flat and drooped—they blink at me while I'm chatting with President Paylor or leading a press conference, cameras flashing and popping and her damn drowsy eyes hovering at the edge of my mind. And the mystery, constantly gnawing, _what happened to you?_

The only time my mind clears is when I hit the gym, pounding the punching bag, sweat dripping off my face, pleasantly and painfully out of breath. But when I collapse in bed, there she is again, her throaty song, her luscious sway, her eyes sparking with anger as I smirked and gibed _pretty dress_.

And I remember her finger, surprisingly warm, and her whisper like a spike of frost, _Don't come back here again._ And I swear to myself, I won't go there. I won't.

I made that mistake once before, and I won't do it again. Damn it, I won't.

I'm almost relieved when President Paylor gives me a mission. She sneaks me a slip of paper in a stack of files, scrawled with an address and a time and a little message about finding dissidents, the writing scratchy and secretive, and I feel this little leap in my heart. Finally, a trail I can follow. A mystery that I can let myself solve.

I look up the address and it's a fancy house in the north, opulent and palatial and right on the water. There's no name on the deed, but I'm sure it's some old crony of Snow, a glitzy Capitol jackass, still making money off the reconstruction and not being punished for his greed and corruption.

And a part of me can't wait to go and infiltrate his fancy house and arrest him for whatever corrupt collusion he's planning, can't wait to see the shock on his fat cat face when he gets busted and loses everything. And I really can't wait to take all the wealth he's squeezed and stolen from the Districts over the years and funnel it back to the people he crushed without a thought to build his big, fancy mansion.

When I get there I'm surprised to find the ornate gold front doors are just thrown open, and there's a crush of New Capitol citizens crowding to get in. It's a literal zoo, the people decked in outlandish patterns and overgrown and over stylized hair, hardly recognizable as humans. I'm pushed and shoved and jostled through the crowd, everyone nattering loudly about the party and the gossip and their excitement.

Once inside, I'm utterly confused. There are rowdy card games and spinning roulette wheels, banquets and tables piled with a dizzying variety of edible nibbles and strangely colored drinks. The party spills out of the foyer and into other rooms and hallways, elaborate and massive, almost embarrassingly opulent with an abundance of plush red velvet and thick gold plating and scandalous frescoes.

Why would Paylor want me to come to this party at this time, in this wild place? There must be hundreds of guests playing and partying throughout the sprawling house. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to find dissidents in this crush of dilettantes and socialites. Where do I even start?

And then suddenly the crowd parts, and my heart stops because of course it's her.

Her back is to me, but I would know that pale blond hair anywhere, icy but soft in lush, romantic waves. She's wearing white this time, a long dress, silky and slinky and the softest pale fur stole, revealing bare shoulders and a spray of diamonds on her ears and throat, glamorous and divine.

She half turns towards me, and our eyes meet. But this time she doesn't ice over with disdain, instead she blinks at me from under her dark lashes and her lip curves up slowly. Her eyes don't leave mine as she sashays her way towards me, drink in hand, her swaying walk revealing a rather generous slit up the front of her dress.

I feel myself swallow.

"Well my my, it's Captain Hawthorne," she drawls lightly as she approaches. "I didn't really think this was your type of scene."

"It's not," I grit out. Something about her being here puts me on edge. Just when I thought I'd gotten away from her, I think grimly. "What are you doing here?" It comes out rougher than I meant.

"Having fun of course," she gives me a mock salute with her drink. "Come on, take me upstairs. That's where the real party is anyways." And then Madge Undersee just slips her hand into the crook of my elbow like its the most natural thing in the world and leads me towards the stairs.

Honestly the staircase alone is wider than our old bedroom in District Twelve and it's all coated in thick blue velvet. If I look over the bannister it would give me a pretty unrestricted view of all the guests down below, and a small part of me thinks that that's what Paylor would want me to be doing. But some other instinct, some innate hunter sense, tells me that perhaps downstairs is just a distraction and the really interesting stuff is happening behind closed doors. And another part of me is hyper aware of Madge's hand warm on my arm, the diamonds on her fingers nestled against my dark sleeve like a glittering secret and her heady perfume makes me a little dizzy, and this whole situation is just kind of surreal.

Upstairs she leads me down another hallway, massive gilt frames and rococo pilasters, and the amount of gold plating is almost comical. We enter a large rotunda, light pouring in through a domed oculus, and Madge is right, there is a more intimate party here, clinking drinks and the murmur of conversation, flicked smiles and roving eyes. And suddenly-

"Well if it isn't the Cousin!" And a slap on my back.

"Abernathy?" I turn, confused to see a stumbling Haymitch Abernathy standing behind me, shirt untucked with two-day old stubble and red eyes.

I'm surprised because I haven't seen Haymitch Abernathy for about five years. After the war ended, he just kind of slipped away from all the politics and noise and no one knew why. I didn't really miss him, but occasionally I'd see his drunken exploits in the paper or see a fuzzy picture of him getting off a hovercraft in District Twelve. But from the looks of him now, he hasn't changed much. Still sloppy, still drunk, still a waste of space and oxygen in my humble opinion.

"Ah Margaret, my dear. Come here," he says in the friendliest voice I've ever heard him use. And then suddenly he's hugging Madge and stroking her hair, and she's actually smiling back at him dreamily through her half-lidded eyes, and I feel a little ill.

"Margaret?" I'm incredulous. "How many different names do you go by?" It comes out rudely, but honestly the way Haymitch is looking at Madge is kind of creeping me out.

"Her real name is Margaret," Haymitch laughs. "Madge is just a nickname. I always knew you had more muscles than brains. Come on, cuz, let me get you a drink."

"I'm not her cousin," I grumble, and I'm annoyed because Haymitch laughs full bellied and loud, and I hate that I gave him the satisfaction of showing my irritation.

"I thought politics would have made you a little more charming, _cuz_ ," he takes pleasure in emphasizing the word.

I glare at him, and he grins.

Seeing Haymitch, drunk and grinning and almost falling over, leaning heavily on Madge for support, well it takes me right back to the Hunger Games. I remember pinning all my hopes on him, and all my fears. I remember thinking he was all the help Katniss had in that arena, and I had this horrific twisting feeling of helplessness that I had to depend on him, that I couldn't help her myself.

And I remember those days after she got sent to the Games, the forest just felt so lonely without her. Hunting alone in the quiet, I'd miss her silent presence, the hint of her warmth at my shoulder, her innate knowledge of where to step and where to shoot, our thoughts and movements totally in sync. And I missed having someone to talk to, to share the burden of taking care of our families. I missed asking her advice, missed bartering at the Hob, missed her grim determination and fierceness.

And damn I hate thinking about the past. I haven't thought so much about District Twelve in years, and I'm so angry all these memories are coming back now out of nowhere.

But they aren't coming out of nowhere, I think savagely. It's because of Madge. It all started when I saw her at that infernal lounge. I clench my fists and look at her angrily. She's laughing boozily at something Abernathy said, her furs slipping down to reveal her slim shoulders, those damned delicate fingers of hers light on her throat, and all that old hatred comes rushing back. _Damn her_ , I think viciously.

"You alright there, son?" I turn at the sudden hand on my shoulder, and I actually feel my mouth fall open.

"It's been a long time, Hawthorne. Glad to see you," says Plutarch Heavensbee with a sideways smile.

And I can't believe I'm seeing him too after all this time. We used to work together so closely—during the rebellion, and then after, setting up the government, and Plutarch was always campaigning, always twisting words and glitzing up propos. He loved putting me in his little ads, said I had the face for it, and he'd have his team style up my hair and powder my nose and the shirts they made me wear were always a little too tight. It used to bug me at the time, but it's kind of funny now that I think about it.

But then suddenly he was gone. I don't know the details, but I remember him and Paylor got into this huge fight. She wanted to end the propaganda, just be open and honest with the people. But Plutarch always loved his games, didn't want to give up the manipulations and half-truths. And Paylor finally asked him to resign.

Word is Plutarch is one of the wealthiest men in Panem now. He left politics and made his fortune in gaming—running casinos and televised sports and controlling all the betting and odds-making in the country. And I knew Paylor hated him for it, hated his success and frivolity, and all the sleazy businessmen that flocked to him, throwing away huge sums of money that they shouldn't have had in first place, living lives of excess and risk and avarice.

But I always had a soft spot for Plutarch. Sure he's a manipulative ass and a selfish bastard, but he did save Katniss from the Quarter Quell arena. He organized the whole escape, got half the Victors in on his plan and, most surprisingly, didn't get caught. The whole thing was shockingly well-planned and executed and brave, and there wouldn't have been a rebellion without him. And whatever anyone else says, his propos worked, they got the job done. For that he has my grudging respect.

And Plutarch, well he never looked at me differently after I wanted to bury the Nut, didn't even mention that final bomb that killed Prim and all those other kids. He just kept on working with me, same as always. He understood that sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the greater good, that sometimes violence _is_ the answer, as much as we hate to admit it. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to keep the people you love safe. And hell, if he wanted to quit politics and skim some money from the bloated coffers of Snow's old cronies, well why the hell should I stop him.

"Plutarch," I say in surprise. "Good to see you," I say, and I actually mean it. We share a firm handshake. "What are you doing here?"

"Me?" Plutarch laughs. "Boy, this is my house."

"Oh," I let out a startled laugh, and part of me is a little shocked that Paylor sent me here to spy on her old right-hand man. Could he be up to something more than his usual unsavory pursuits? Could he have crossed the line into something actually illegal? A part of me hopes it's one of his associates I'm supposed to be looking into. I'd hate to get on the wrong side of Plutarch Heavensbee. Either way, I know in my bones I'm onto something important.

"Well shoot the place looks great, man," I lie with a smile. "Still hanging out with that old slob?" I ask, tipping my head towards Haymitch.

"Ha!" Plutarch barks a laugh. "You know Haymitch. Even sloshed out of his mind he can outthink just about anyone. He's good to have around most of the time."

"He can outdrink you and outthink you," I laugh back. "That would be a good line for a propo."

"Always working, Hawthorne," Plutarch chuckles back. "Come on, you need a drink. Let's catch up." And this I know is my opportunity. Get a couple drinks in old Pluto and pump him for some information, see whose here and what they're up to.

"Margaret, time for your medicine!" Haymitch distracts me with a drunken laugh, and I don't know why I'm shocked as he puts a tray in front of her, and I hear the telltale clinking of a glass bottle and syringe. Madge is laughing and Haymitch is lurching towards her and Plutarch isn't even surprised, and I feel this awful surge of shock and anger that these two old men are allowing this to happen.

"Don't worry about it," Plutarch must have seen my face. "That's just how those two are."

"It just seems wrong," I mutter back, and I know it's none of my business, but I can't seem to look away. Haymitch is helping Madge tie the rubber hose around her arm and they both keep laughing and stumbling. "I grew up with her," I stutter over the words. "I don't know, it just feels…wrong," I finish lamely.

But it does feel wrong, there's no other word for it. The one thing I remember about Madge was her quiet control. She was always so put together and calm; you never knew what she was thinking. When I'd stop by to chat with Katniss at lunch, the two of them would just be reading silently or having a hushed conversation. At her back door she'd be all smiles and business, giving no hint of what was happening behind those large doors in the house beyond. I don't recognize this girl, laughing and boozy, bare legs and bare shoulders and lurching into Haymitch's arms.

His hands are dark on her pale skin, injecting her dose in an eerily familiar way. Her head lolls back as the drugs shoot into her veins. He smirks and gives her hand a squeeze before untying the tourniquet, and the whole thing feels so gruesome and ghoulish and…just wrong.

"Her mom was a morphing addict," Plutarch shrugs dispassionately. "It's in her blood."

"What?" I turn to him with a start.

"Yeah no one talked about it, but we all knew. The Capitol used to fly morphing in specially for her. Used to drive old Undersee nuts." Plutarch is thoughtful. "Snow was smart, I'll give him that. It was a great way to keep the mayor in line. Madge grew up dosing her mom." He shrugs, "It's not surprising she's turned out this way."

"I…I didn't know." I say, stunned. I wonder what other secrets Madge is hiding behind that cool exterior, those infuriating glassy eyes, smooth as a mirror or a still lake at dawn. And I can't help but think of Katniss again, curious how much she knew about Madge, part of me hoping she was just as oblivious as me.

Haymitch stumbles towards the bar, leaving Madge lolling on a couch, one arm thrown up haphazardly, legs dangling idly on an armrest, eyelashes fluttering. And damn it, as much as I want to, I can't walk away. I know I should be chatting up Plutarch, staying on mission, but she's so helpless laying there. People are already starting to stare, whispering behind their hands, eyes glittering with malice and delight, licking lips and hungry eyes.

I stride over and kneel down beside her.

"Madge come on. Let me take you home," I murmur, and the words are sincere. A part of me wants to give her shoulder a little shake, but I grit my teeth and I don't touch her.

"Hm?" she hums, her eyes barely opening. "I'm fine. I just need to rest for a minute," she gives me a little crooked smile and pats my jacket lapel.

"Madge please come on. I don't think it's safe here."

"Safe?" Her smile grows a little wider. "No probably not," and her eyes start to drift closed again, her limbs pliant and drowsy.

And I think to myself I don't need to ask her permission. I could just scoop her up easy as anything and get her out of here. I can almost see it, Madge buried in her fur wrapper, tucked against my chest, pliable and languorous and yielding.

 _Like once before_ , my mind whispers treacherously. I stiffen and stop myself, dropping my arms.

And I'm angry at her, for what she did back then and what she's doing now. And I'm angry at myself for caring. This behavior, the drugs and the drinking, it's such a waste of time, so indulgent and irritating. And I feel that familiar spike of rage, hot and prickly under my skin, and only Madge could ever bother me so much. I run my hand through my hair in frustration.

"Just like every other Townie," I hear myself hiss. "Fucking _weak,_ " my voice drips with contempt, and I just want her to look at me, to really see me. I want to see her do _something_ , maybe see some spark of anger or life like I did when I insulted her dress a few weeks ago.

But Madge doesn't take the bait. She just lets out a slow, throaty laugh.

"You have no idea, Captain," she says with this indulgent look in her eye, almost like she's humoring me, laughing at me, and she gives my lapel another sleepy pat before letting her eyes drift closed.

I stare at her, heart pounding, my hands curled into fists. It takes me a second, but I push away any thoughts of the girl I knew in the past and any memory of things that happened long ago. I look at Madge now. Her breathing is steady, her dark lashes trembling against her pale cheeks, her pink lips parted slightly. She is so relaxed, all softened and tractable…and vulnerable. Her hair is luxuriant and just a little mussed.

 _Like an angel_. The thought comes so suddenly and unexpectedly that it shocks me. I stand up abruptly, and I know it's time to walk away. I take one step back, eyes still on Madge, her fingers spasming lightly as she shifts in her sleep. I turn around and walk towards the bar purposefully, and I tell myself I will not look back. Not again.

I get to the bar and clap Plutarch on the back, and I tell myself it's time to look forward, no more looking back. I'm sick to death of the past.

So I focus on work, sloshing up Plutarch and getting him to open up, even being friendly with Haymitch because, who knows, he probably has some good information too. So we drink and we laugh and I ask them about the people at the party and about the gaming industry and some of our mutual friends, and we all find it really easy to avoid talking about the war or politics or Paylor.

I keep one eye running around the room though just to see whose around, and I can't help it but sometimes my gaze passes over Madge. She sleeps for a while, sighing and shifting occasionally, her movements leisurely and fuzzy. But eventually she starts to stir drowsily, wrapping her furs tighter around herself and blinking slowly. And of course, some guy takes this as his opportunity to sidle up to her and take a seat. And he looks like every other sleazy guy I've ever seen, slicked back hair and a shiny watch, a little too old for his antics with a too-large smile and hands all over, touching her shoulder, squeezing her hand, pressing her to take another drink. I close my eyes and tell myself not to worry about it, tell myself it's not my damn problem.

And anyway, Madge always could take care of herself. No guy would dream of getting near her back home. Her dad was the mayor, had the ear of the Capitol, and Madge was totally off limits. If someone was dumb enough to try approaching her, she'd give you this look of contempt, just flick her eyes up and down, and you could feel yourself just shrink. I would know, I got that look a couple times and it made me so mad but it also kept me away. That girl was cold as ice.

But when I scan the room again, Madge is actually talking to the guy and almost kind of falling onto him like she can't quite keep her balance, and of course the bastard has managed to get another drink in her hands. As though she needs any more help getting buzzed. Her eyes are all glazed and lost and sleepy, and I know the drugs haven't left her system yet.

The guy manages to get Madge to her feet, and she's kind of giggling and stumbling. He wraps a possessive arm around her waist and he's rubbing her arm in a way that is definitely not appropriate, this big predatory grin on his face, and he's leading her from the room.

I'm halfway out of my chair to go stop him, when Plutarch puts a light hand on my arm.

"Just leave it, son," he says mildly, not looking at me. His eyes are trained on his drink but somehow I know he's tensed up.

"I'll just be a second," my voice sounds kind of slurred and I'm a little surprised to realize I'm just a bit tipsy myself.

"He said leave it," Haymitch says, and his voice is quiet but forceful. His dark eyes suddenly look very focused and very clear.

"I don't know what you two are playing at, but I'm not letting him take her away," I stumble a little as I get up, and I see with a flare of panic that the guy is maneuvering Madge into a dark room, trying to keep her balanced with one arm and shoving open a heavy wooden door with the other.

"Damn it, you always did cause trouble," I hear Haymitch mutter, and suddenly the world is spinning and I feel my arms pinned behind me, jerked so hard they feel as though they might pop out of their sockets.

"What the hell— " I start, but then I see Haymitch's eyes and they are hard stones, not drunk at all, and his grip is like iron.

"Don't even think about it," he says, his words measured and cold.

And I think, this is it. This is what Paylor wanted me to find. Whatever this is, it's what she wants me to figure out.

"Trust me, cuz," Haymitch says, his voice a little softer, but his grip on me is still tight like a vice.

And quickly I look for Madge, but she's not there. All I see is the heavy wooden door swinging shut with a very loud, very final thud.

…

Hey guys! I'll tell you what this chapter was hardddd to write. I really don't like writing chapters that are needed to set the scene if you know what I'm saying so hopefully it was interesting enough to keep you guys into the story. I personally think Haymitch and Plutarch had some awful qualities in the books, but at heart were good people and more multi-dimensional than they came across. Hopefully I can get all their character nuances out as the story progresses. Anyway, thanks for the reviews on the last chapter…it really is nice to see some great Gadge fans are still out there! Your comments and thoughts are always appreciated, and honestly they really help me kind of flesh out where I'm taking the story! Merry Christmas, all!

Love,

Fly


	3. Interlude 1

**—** **Interlude: War and its Aftermath—**

When Madge Undersee was young, she thought she understood something of pain.

Her father was helpless and hopeless, shackled by the rules of the Capitol, spending his waking hours trying to find a way, any way, to make the lives of his citizens easier. His neck and his back stooped under the weight of their suffering, taking every loss or beating or starvation as a personal burden, a personal failing.

Her mother was sad and sickly, mourning a baby sister lost in the most brutal of ways, mourning a barren womb unable to bloom with life. She spent her days in a pained delirium, confined to her bed, emitting only the feeblest of moans. There were moments of lucidity, of her sweet smile and loving hands brushing back Madge's hair, but those moments faded so quickly and so suddenly, that Madge couldn't help but weep for their loss.

Madge knew endless solitude, knew the acute despair of loneliness.

She knew that others hated her, reviled her, wished all kinds of evil upon her and her parents. She knew the pain of swallowed hurt, the ache thick and clogging in her throat. She learned how to hide her tears, learned how to smooth her face and unclench her hands while anger and agony flowed through her in a torrent.

Madge knew the fear of the Capitol. Its minions prowling her home, slithering through her things, hissing in her father's ear, and mocking her mother's pain. They lived their lives on a ledge, teetering wildly, terrified of the misstep, terrified of the fall.

But when they come for her, Madge Undersee realizes she knows nothing of pain, nothing of fear.

As she waits in her cell, stripped, quaking, shivering with fright, Madge thinks nothing can be worse than this anticipation, this expectation of horrors to come. But when they finally do come, Madge Undersee realizes that no fear, no horrible phantasm can be as cruel, as painful, as ghastly as this.

Dreams of defiance don't last long. There is a moment, an adrenaline-soaked, flushed moment of rebellion, of sharp inhales and steeling herself. But when the pain comes it is so furious, so jagged, so all-consuming that she flips like a coin, two faced and brassy with fear. She would do something, anything, whatever they say to _please_ just stop the pain. She sings and dances and screams for them, wholly theirs to do with what they will. Her arms, her legs, her lips are theirs, and she bends and breaks and bawls to their will, her mouth open and closing as they demand, a puppet on their string.

They find her every weakness, pry apart every fracture. And sometimes the thinks for them, torture is not a work of art, but a work of love. They study her, learn her. Know her every quake and quiver, every mewl and moan, more intimate than a lover. Every trifling thought, passing childhood fancy, her innermost self exposed, trembling and vulnerable— every crevice of her mind and orifice of her body explored and scraped out, the pain an excruciating filigree of torment, laid gently on her skin like lace.

Madge learns terror, can feel it clotting in her veins. There is no fight or flight here. Fight or flight or _freeze_ , she thinks. A fear so fierce it causes paralysis, a dread so strong she can't breath. Oftentimes just hearing their footsteps approach will cause her chest to seize up, a metal band pressing on her ribs, squeezing so tightly she can't take a breath, black spots dancing before her eyes.

For some reason, they like to keep her cold. Often they will douse her with water and then just leave her, the room icy and glittering with frost. She freezes and cramps, hunches in on herself, frantically rubbing her blue-tipped fingers until she is too numb to move, her joints frozen, barbed-wire knots. She becomes used to a wild, hopeless place of delirium, floating somewhere between death and despair, teeth chattering so hard she is sure her jaw will break. And that's when they smile over her, eyes glittering, lips curved, sharp as a blade.

Sometimes there is a blessed moment when she will lose herself, abandon her body like an old husk, lose herself in the trance-like rhythm of her suffering. And in that confused twilight, floating outside of her body, she will think of him.

She clings to the memories—of lean muscles, tan and taut, of messy black hair in the sunshine and eyes intense, focused like a hawk. And when she thinks of him, somehow she thinks of defiance, of everything she is not—his hands were always strong and warm, his body radiating heat. She remembers his back in tatters and striped bloody, foaming with puss and pain, and still he didn't give in to them. _Oh why can't have that kind of strength_ she thinks, shivering uncontrollably. And then the thought floats away, overwhelmed by another crash of pain.

She doesn't even feel shame when she breaks like a piece of rotting fruit, sickly and fecund, bursting with her every fetid secret. She spills her inner self, every minor misdeed, every furtive rebellious thought, every whispered conversation. She vomits out everything she knows, every bit of herself laid bare, and likewise she sees their eyes curdle with disdain because she cannot give them what they want, that one kernel of truth that will satisfy them.

And whenever they leave her alone in her cell, she feels empty. Like leftover fruit, pulp and pith and pips scooped out, nothing left but a limp, scraped peel.

And that is when Madge prays for death.

Her despair is so bleak and so final. She knows her prayers— desperate, begging, screaming prayers—are hopeless. This is an underground Capitol prison. And Madge realizes that this place is buried so deep and so dark that no god will hear her here. And sometimes in the deep dark, in the deepest darkest place in her heart, Madge Undersee won't pray to any god. No, instead she prays… _Katniss_. The girl on fire. Madge prays that Katniss will bring an end to the Capitol, an end to her pain. She thinks of Katniss, fierce and free and strong and her only real friend, and she sobs so hard she thinks her ribs will break.

And Madge Undersee realizes that she never knew pain, never knew fear. She never knew a loneliness like this.

…

I always thought when we won the war things would be different.

Katniss would be safe, and then she would have time to realize she loves me. I would have a career, and so my family would finally have a real chance at making it out of poverty. I had all these plans. I'd get Rory an internship and Vick swimming lessons and my Ma an automatic washer and electric iron, and I'd get Posy some girl's clothes instead of our old boyish hand me downs. I thought after the war there'd be hope, and time to fix all the things I needed to fix. Like Katniss and her family and my family.

But when the war ended suddenly everyone just leaves. Katniss gives me one last look, her eyes hard as iron, and makes it very clear she never wants to see me again. And Ma heads back to Twelve on the first transport out, saying the kids need to return to normal life, get out of the Underground. Rory doesn't even look at me, he's so mad about that bomb. And Vick and Posy are so frightened and confused, but at least they cry and hug me goodbye. And Prim is gone too, and I can just imagine how she must have felt, the fire eating her skin, her last act just trying to help save some kids…and that's when I clench my fists and _make_ myself stop thinking about everyone that's left.

From being stuck in a one-bedroom house with five people, kids always calling me and Ma needing me to hang some laundry and Katniss waiting for me beyond the fence and my friends in the mines, suddenly I'm alone and I have nowhere to go. And there's so much work to be done in the Capitol. Organizing the government, rebuilding the Districts, figuring out security. And President Snow still has some nasty surprises waiting for us, probably laughing at us from his grave as we slowly discover one after another his treacherous schemes and hidey holes and ugly secrets.

And I tell myself, you know what… _Fuck it, Hawthorne. Keep moving forward._

And I do move forward because really, there is so much to do. I don't want this new government to become like the old one, and let me tell you, that requires a ton of work and a ton of time and focus and effort.

But there's something about being all alone in this strange place that makes me think of my dad. I guess it's because he's the only person I love who didn't leave me by choice.

I think about him taking me out to the forest when I was just a kid. I used to love it out there, just the two of us. I could finally run and shout and swim and there was just so much _space_. I remember him teaching me to climb trees, collect eggs, and follow game trails. We'd set snares and he'd laugh at my fumbling fingers, endlessly patient. Now that I think about it, I don't know how he had the energy after working a full week in the mines. And I have a really distinct memory of his hands; they'd be so strong carrying me or hacking at coal, yet they were so nimble and deft— threading a fishing line, setting a snare, patching my old shirt, holding a tiny Rory in one gentle hand when he was first born.

And suddenly Dad was just gone. God I remember that news hitting me like a punch in the gut. My rib cage felt empty and the world just went out of focus, like it went white and I had this ringing in my ears. I remember asking myself over and over again how it could possibly be true. Like I couldn't grasp that I wouldn't see my dad again…ever.

But honestly I didn't have much time to miss him. I have this strong memory of the lump I'd get in my throat every time I saw Ma; her stomach was swollen with Posy, and her eyes were always red rimmed and gummy with tears as she hauled huge piles of laundry. Vick and Rory were so skittish and scared, trembling and jumpy and teary.

And damn I remember how they were always hungry, and I was too. I can still see their little faces pinched and so thin and hear their stomachs growling at night as they slept.

I wasn't even scared the first time I went out to the woods by myself. I was so desperate, and Dad had taught me so well. I was so determined to help Ma. All I could think was that soon she'd be stuck in bed unable to work and that there would be another whole mouth to feed. So I went out into the woods and I'd set his snares and collect his berries and fish his streams, and if occasionally my vision blurred or I'd have to swipe at wetness on my cheek, well no one was around to see.

And then suddenly Posy was born in a flurry of bloody shrieks and I can still hear Ma gasping and sobbing with pain as Mrs. E sewed her up. And between hunting and school and trading and cleaning the house and keeping the boys out of trouble and in clothes that fit and being so scared but taking out tesserae anyway because everyone was always so damn hungry, time kind of flew by.

But now that I'm alone I guess I have time to think, and it's awful because all these old memories keep coming back to haunt me. And it's even worse because I know I can never get back to those happy times again. I've never been so lonely in my life.

But President Paylor needs help clearing the city of pods and keeping dissent to a minimum, and I'm happy to help because I'm good at it and also if I keep moving maybe then I won't have time to think about those happy times that will never come back.

Just recently, we discovered another dark little secret of Snow's, an underground labyrinth not included on any schematics of the city, a little footnote in Snow's personal journal. I immediately volunteer to lead the operation even though we don't know what we'll find because _damn it, Hawthorne, keep moving forward._ But as I rappel down the impossibly lightless elevator shaft, the darkness pressing in on me like a threat, I don't tell anyone this abandoned elevator shaft, dark and confined, is eerily similar to descending into the mines.

And damn no matter how hard I try, even down here I can't help but think of my dad, suffocating to death, confined and claustrophobic. I can't stop thinking of how afraid he must have been, trapped in that hellish place.

Once when I was about fifteen, I purposely swam out in the lake and stuck my head underwater, tried to hold my breath as long as I could, until my vision clouded with red and I had this searing pain in my lungs and I just couldn't stay under any longer. And I can't help thinking of my dad and his desperation, that burning feeling in his lungs. I can just see him clawing and climbing, trying to get out, nails scraped raw and bloody and red creeping into his vision, thick and glutinous and inevitable like a spreading pool of blood.

Memories man, they can crack a man's heart. I remember turning nineteen, my first day down in the mines— the small space, the horrible dust, the endless darkness, and my dad's ghost hovering like a fine mist in the air. I came home that night, muscles knotted in pain, dead exhausted, and Ma kept a bucket of water and a cake of soap out for me and she didn't say anything about my red eyes and the stark track marks running through the black dust on my face.

We reach the bottom of the shaft and spread out flashlights flickering, gas masks on, our trigger fingers jumpy. It's a disturbing maze of pods and traps, and _fuck_ Snow, I mean honestly why couldn't he do anything without turning it into some convoluted, sadistic game? But a tiny part of me is a glad because I forget about my dad and the mines for a little bit.

We finally get to the end of the labyrinth, hearts in our throats, and there's a small room, flooded with light. I actually have to cover my eyes for a second to let them adjust to the brightness. And of all the wild things I've seen in this war, mutts and pods and tracker jackers and bombs and Snow's lips flecked with blood, nothing compares to my surprise now, nothing compares to this.

…

Madge hears them coming, quick footsteps and muttered, muffled words, and her heart drops. She feels the panic rise in her chest, anxious breaths sawing through her chest, blood rushing in her ears. She scrabbles backwards, backing away, trying to find a place to hide. But there is nowhere, no place she can run, and she thinks _not again,_ her heart fluttering like a trapped bird in her chest.

This time they come with guns and masks, their uniforms all black, emerging from the darkness like the demons in her dreams. She balls herself up as tightly as she can, wishing she could make herself small enough to disappear. And the terror—the terror is bitter in her throat, roiling in her stomach, sour on her tongue.

They approach her slowly, almost cautiously, allowing the fear to build. Her eyes screw shut, her breath coming in quick, panicked staccato gasps, and she hates them for it.

"Holy shit, _Madge_ ," one of them breathes, and it barely registers. She's already pushed herself into the corner of her cell, but she keeps pushing herself backwards, shaking and panting, wishing she could disappear into the walls, her mind flooded with an all-consuming, incoherent fear.

But then he sweeps off his mask…and it's _him_.

"Madge, it's me. You're safe now." He reaches for her, and Madge hears her breathing loud and ragged in her ears. She covers her face with her hands and moans. Another trick, and a good one at that. She hates when they dangle hope on front of her, hates these games and delusions.

It's a good delusion this time. The bright lights are behind him, throwing him into shadow. All she can see is the outline of his profile, a blinding sliver of light outlining his silhouette, reducing him to a dark form. The voice is right though and his outline, tall and lean, messy black hair and a well-formed face, his eyes the distinctive grey of gun-metal in the dark.

She moans again, inarticulate with horror. They have used every trick against her, every deception. But not like this—not this hope, not this lie. Not this image of him standing in front of her, reaching for her and whispering of hope and safety and escape. How can they take everything beautiful and sweet, even her most secret sacred memories, and twist them into something so perverse?

"Madge, come with me," he says again, and it sounds just like him, but it's worse because he sounds softer and kinder and he never used to speak to her that way. She feels herself shaking and she's still trying to back up though she's dimly aware that her back is against the wall.

He reaches for her, and she expects pain, bruising and biting on the soft flesh of her arms. But his touch is firm and gentle, and he brushes the limp curtain of hair back from her face, and she gasps. She knows those hands, the rough callouses, the dextrous fingers. She knows their touch, brushing against her skin as he would pass her a bag of berries, as she would pass him a pile of coins.

And his eyes, she knows them too, a molten quicksilver, his gaze alert and intense.

She stills. How can the delusion be so lifelike? The hallucination so real?

"Madge, come on. I swear, you're safe now," he says again. And his hands and his eyes and his voice, it feels so real.

She stares at him, wide-eyed and fearful, but no spike of pain shatters the illusion, no cruel smile or bucket of frozen water or current of electricity.

"Come on," he says again, and the gentle pressure of his hands is insistent as he tries to pull her to her feet. And something within Madge dissolves, some resistance or fear or barrier in her heart, and she feels herself melting with relief and reaching towards him, and if it is a hallucination, then she decides she is going to embrace it.

And so Gale Hawthorne picks up Madge Undersee and carries her out of the darkness, out of that secret underground prison, and into the light, into the free air of the New Capitol.

….

Author's Note:

I know, more questions and more mysteries…don't worry, all the answers will be revealed eventually. I know this is different and darker than my previous stories. I'd really love to know what you think positive or negative. Thanks for those sticking with the story, I know it's super dark, but I've always been a sucker for a happy ending so we will get there eventually I think. But the Hunger Games is so dark and awful, especially Mockingjay, that I just don't feel it would be doing the story justice without facing that darkness and acknowledging it. Anyway, Happy New Year everybody!

Fly


	4. Interlude 2

— **Interlude: War and its Aftermath—**

That night when I sleep, it is the first night I don't dream of Prim. Her sweet face and gentle eyes and happy smile. And then her screaming. Prim begging me to save her. Begging and crying and _reaching_ for me with this look of betrayal because I fed her and protected her and loved her and _why_ won't I help her.

No. That night I dream of Madge Undersee. Not back home on her porch or at school or sitting on stage next to her father. No I dream of her when I first saw her in that cell. Flighty and afraid, her hair mussed and her throat a necklace of bruises, her pupils wide, the fear flickering on her face like a candle. And her eyes when she recognizes me, dilating with recognition and then dissolving to relief. _Oh Gale_ , the memory of my name on her lips lingering like perfume, and her arms wrapped around me clutching so tightly and this feeling of relief because finally, finally I did the right thing. Finally I saved someone.

When I wake, I try to push her from my mind. Her sobs as she scrabbled away from me, moaning incoherently in fear. Her cell, small and cramped and filthy and flooded with white light.

I can't quite manage it, and I find myself checking her file surreptitiously from my desk. As the days go by, the reports keep coming back the same: No progress. No visitors. The patient won't open up. The patient won't say why she was taken, won't say anything about her parents. Patient won't eat. Patient won't sleep. Patient won't speak.

The reports make me queasy. Where is her family? Didn't she have any friends that survived? There were a handful of merchant families that lived through the bombing, but most of them have moved back to Twelve already; maybe a few have lingered in Thirteen. There certainly aren't many from Twelve in the New Capitol besides me. And if Madge is anything like I am, her loneliness must be agonizing.

It takes me two weeks before I build up the courage to go see her. Battle plans, nasty snares, knifing a man in the heart—I can close my eyes and steel my mind and get it done. But going to see the Mayor's daughter sick in her bed, my heart stutters at the thought. There's something bitter in my memory of her in that cell, the torture embedded in her eyes and gouged into her body. The Capitol's pain written in her skin, a bloody calligraphy of razor-thin lashes and crusty, scabbed over bruises.

When I used to think of Madge Undersee, I always thought _perfection._

Bitter, hated, rage-inducing perfection.

But seeing her in that cell— bloody, broken, afraid— I came to the painfully obvious conclusion that she really is just a human being after all. And for some reason, that realization makes me afraid.

And her arms winding around me, shockingly intimate, my name a kiss on her lips, so unguarded…I felt a very strange jolt of _something._

And well, that terrifies me.

I despise cowardice of any kind. So it takes me two weeks, but finally with an almost desperate _Suck it up, Hawthorne_ , I make my way to the large government hospital where she's being kept. And I don't really try to think about why I'm going to see her or why I'm kind of afraid of going to see her or why I can't stop thinking about going to see her or why any of this matters at all. _Just do it and move on, damn it._

Its mid-afternoon when I finally get there, but the lights are all off in her room, dark and quiet as a tomb.

"Madge?" I whisper in the dark, and with it a silent plea that she won't be there.

"Yes?" A breath so soft, I could pretend I didn't hear.

I toy with the idea for a moment, just turning around and walking away.

But the guilt drives me to stay. And the curiosity. There's some of that too.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. She sits in bed under a nest of blankets, her eyes wide and blinking slowly in the dark. Even now, like this, there is something terribly lovely about her, eyes almost black in the shadows, her cheeks and collarbones a pale gleam, angular and bare as bone.

I think of her cell, flooded with such bright light, and Madge backing away in terror, whimpering and shaking and shrinking in the unforgiving glare. And I suddenly understand the darkness, the pile of blankets. Finally, she has an ally in the shadows, an illusion of safety, a place to hide.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice the slightest of whispers.

I move closer cautiously, unsure of my answer.

"Just wanted to see how you're doing. There aren't many of us from Twelve left." I stop myself. Perhaps bringing up our destroyed home isn't the best idea. I feel frustration rising in my throat. I don't know Madge at all, don't know what to talk about, what will make her respond.

She nods at my answer and drops her gaze. Her fingers are twisting the edge of her blanket ceaselessly.

"Your scars—they're gone," I notice in surprise. And it's true. Her hands are clean and unblemished, like I remember from home, and the bruises have vanished from her neck.

Her hands still.

"Yes. The medicine here is wonderful. If you look at me, it's almost like nothing ever happened." Her tone is mild, and I can't read her expression in the dark.

I shiver.

"Madge. It's freezing in here." My sigh is a frosty cloud of breath. "Let me tell them to turn the heat up."

"No, please," she whispers. "I like the cold. It…it reminds me I'm alive."

I have no idea how to respond. I slip closer to the bed, straining to hear Madge, her voice soft and scratchy, an itch in the dark.

"They kept me so cold." Her eyes scrunch closed. "There came a point…that I… I liked it. If I was cold… I was alive. I dreamed of death, and all I could think is that it would be warm."

I"m not sure what to say or that there is anything I can say, that would be right. I don't know what I expect, but when Madge opens her eyes, they are dry.

"Can I have your hand?" She asks, reaching towards me. I hesitate for the briefest moment, but in this shadowed room, I don't know, everything feels different. Madge isn't the Mayor's daughter, rich and proud and untouchable. She's alone and afraid.

And she's a piece of home, unexpectedly returned to me.

I expect her hand to be icy, barren and cold. But she's surprisingly warm, pulsing and alive. She takes my hand gently, her touch as delicate as I remember. She examines my hand intently, running a curious finger over my knuckles, her touch no more than a sigh over the ridged planes and rough callouses. She flips my palm and traces the soft pads of my fingertips and the jagged white lines of old scars, the remnants of long-forgotten hurts. The room is quiet, nothing to disturb its hush but the sounds of our breathing, soft in the dark.

"I remember these hands," she says finally, her eyes meeting mine. "It really is you."

I nod, something thick clogging my throat. She releases my hand.

"I keep thinking I'll wake up and be back there, and all this will be just a dream."

I don't trust myself to speak. I see the pulse beating in her throat, in that pale place where her collarbones meet, angular and arched like the columns of the Justice Building. I have this strange urge to touch here there, to feel her life blood warm and rushing and alive under my hand.

I look up, and Madge is gazing at me, incredibly still, poised at the edge of something.

I find myself leaning towards her, an almost imperceptible shift, and the motion is like the pouring over of a waterfall.

Suddenly her lips are on mine. I tremble with the shock and hear myself make an involuntary noise, low in the back of my throat. And I feel her fingers, those delicate beautiful fingers, a light touch on my biceps. And I don't hesitate. My arms snake around her slim waist, I can encircle her so easily, and she feels like a warm little kitten protected in my arms. She moans, this tiny, irresistible sound, and something within me softens and melts. Her lips are on mine, warm and soft and desperate and moving. I feel my loneliness then, and hers— feel the intensity of her touch.

A part of me knows that it's madness, that Madge is lost and vulnerable and alone. But I don't stop and neither does she. Some part of me — lonely and wounded and lost in a haze of war and ghosts — that part of me needs this, just for a moment, and damn it feels nice.

Madge shudders, and I run a hand up her arm, along her neck, and into her hair. And then suddenly she's gasping, her breath jagged, and she's pushing me away. She ducks her head, her hair curtained over her features.

"Madge?" My voice is a question, trying to gauge what's happening.

She turns away from me, and I hear her, a quick, sharp gasp that she stifles. Then deep breaths, drawn even and slow, a trick so I won't guess she's crying.

"Madge, it's alright," I try again, placing my hands on the bones of her shoulder. I can see the knobbed contours of her spine through her hospital gown.

She doesn't turn around, just keeps facing the far wall, breathing evenly in and out.

I don't understand why should would hide. I've seen enough women cry; it doesn't surprise me, or scare me.

I remember Ma, untangling herself from the snarl of Rory and Vick's limbs and slipping under the covers with me after Dad died. She would cling to me and sob, muffling her cries in the rough blankets, not wanting to wake the kids, and I'd rub her back, bright with heat, and gulp back my own pain until my throat scraped with the effort.

Or Posy, how many times did I hold her as she cried? First, as a baby, red-faced and indignant, feverish and sweaty and shrieking in my ears. I'd rock her until she went limp with exhaustion, a sweet bundle warm in the cradle of my arm. Then later, as a girl, complaining over a scraped knee or one of her brother's teasing or the hunger burning deep in her little belly.

Or Katniss once in the forest, angry tears stabbing her eyes when she found one of her father's bows snapped with frost, and then again after her first Games, flying into my arms and sobbing and choking against my chest.

Or Prim. The memories still haunt me. How she would curl up against me on the sagging sofa, silent tears dripping along her cheeks and soaking through the rough fabric of my shirt as she watched her sister compete for her life, quiet cries so she wouldn't worry her fragile mother.

But maybe a part of me can understand Madge. There's a certain vulnerability you need to be able to cry in front of someone else. And that openness, that defenselessness, well it can feel more intimate than any kiss.

"Is there anything I can do?" I ask, one last try.

"No," Madge whispers, and her voice is surprisingly steady. She turns back to me, and it's hard to see her tears in the dark. "You don't have to do anything more."

She reaches for me again, her fingertips brushing my arms, just for a second.

"Now we're even," she breathes out, her hands falling away.

"What do you mean?" I whisper back, wishing I could understand what she's thinking.

"I'd like to be alone now," she answers. A ghost of a smile flickers across her face. "I think I'd like to sleep."

"Alright," I answer. There's nothing else I can say.

There is a soft shuffle, as Madge nestles into her blankets, and I ease myself out of the room, wondering if I should return.

The hallway is bright, and sunshine streams in through the wide windows. I shake my head stupidly, feeling the strangeness of her shadowed room fall away, like shaking off the webbing of deep sleep.

As I walk away, I decide I will come back. There's some mystery stirring in me, something I can hardly name. And Madge…well, it's the first time I've felt alive, felt useful, in a long while.

I come back the next day around the same time, but her room is empty, the curtains drawn wide, the bedsheets smooth and unwrinkled in the bright light. I go to the front and ask the nurse at the desk where Madge has been moved, but after a few clicks on her keypad, she says there is no one in the system named Madge Undersee.

I return to my office and use my special access codes to look in the hospital database. Her name isn't there either. All the files I had looked at before, recording her meals and visitors and the dosages of her sleeping pills, are gone. She isn't in the main government database or any police reports or in the mission summaries we filed after extracting her from her prison cell.

Madge Undersee is a ghost.

I return to the hospital the next day, beg any of the nurses for information. But they all shrug their shoulders, cooly indifferent. They look at me strangely, sure there was no girl in the room at the end of the hall. I scour their files, rip through searches on my computer, even look up the paper archives in the dusty file rooms in the basement of Snow's palace. The last official mention of Madge Undersee was her registration form, water-spotted and sooty with misuse, for the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

As the weeks go on, and then the months, and then the years, I eventually stop looking for Madge—stop scanning the newspapers for a mention, stop the cursory database searches, stop glimpsing through hospital records whenever I pass through an outlying district. At some point, I almost convince myself the whole thing had not happened, that it had been a vivid dream, drawn from place of loneliness and jumbled memories of home.

But that, I know, is not the truth.

And I shouldn't be surprised. Everyone leaves anyway.

...


	5. Chapter 3

…

 **—** **Five Years After the War —**

 _Fuck it Hawthorne, keep moving forward._

The mantra that helped me survive the war, the loneliness, all the shit I went through.

And I throw it out like old trash for Madge Undersee.

I can't move past it, what I saw.

I'm enraged. Furious at Plutarch and Haymitch and Madge fucking Undersee for messing with my head, for reminding me of my past. For dragging me into their dysfunctional little orbit.

The thought of that man, his hands slithering over Madge, his eyes glittering oil slicks, manhandling her into that room like an unwieldy piece of furniture, his grin self satisfied and and triumphant. The door slamming shut. The thought of what he could have done to her. What he probably did do to her.

And Plutarch just watching, his face placid like a cow. And Haymitch stumbling and grasping her. Drugging her.

Fuck it. I can't move forward from this.

I won't get any answers from Haymitch or Plutarch.

So I do something I haven't done in years. I go to my office and type in my secure access codes and I look up Madge Undersee. I feel this strange sense of duality as I hunt for her. Like the man I was and the man I am meet and mesh over the keypad, my heart stretched tight across the years, still looking for her after all this time.

But this go around I have her real name, her city, her place of work. And I've learned something of secrets these few years. How to see what is missing, rather than what is visible. How to read lines and what is between the lines. A weekly payment from the bar, not marked with a name. An apartment suspiciously unoccupied for years. Payments equal in amount and consistency but labelled an innocuous "miscellaneous income." The pieces fit together, click into place gently in my mind, methodical as a jigsaw puzzle.

That is how you find someone who wants to hide. It is easy, I know now. Simple as looking to the night sky. Not looking at the stars, but the spaces between the stars, focusing on the darkness instead.

I look into the darkness, and I find Madge Undersee.

This time I do not hesitate.

I hear her before I see her, coming down the dark hallway of her building. She almost seems to float in her cloud of white fur, the glittering silver baubles of her dress clicking together like tapping fingernails. Her shoes gleam in the dark, tall and strappy, glittering like cages. She looks different, and I realize she's walking deliberately, not the boozy sway I've become accustomed to.

I slip from the shadowed alcove and reach to stop her, but I only catch a fistful of cream fur.

"Oh!" She starts, tense and turning, her white hands fluttering to her neck like birds. Then her eyes land on me and her shoulders relax.

"Gale, you scared me. I forgot how quiet you can be."

 _Gale_. It startles me to hear my name, she uses it so rarely. For many years in Twelve I didn't think she even knew my name.

But then she had said it once, _oh Gale_ , grasping my neck and relief liquid in her voice.

I harden. Damn Madge and damn my memories.

"We need to talk." My voice sounds hard as steel.

"Yes I suppose we do," her eyes on me are steady. Her fingers still touch her neck lightly, the pulse in her throat throbbing, a vestige of her surprise. " I guess you better come in."

She turns back to the door. A red light scans her retinas and the door clicks and beeps and slides open. Madge holds the door silently, her eyes hooded as she lets me in.

She turns away.

"Please excuse the mess. I'm not prepared for company."

Company. As though I've come for a tea party or a round of cocktails. Though we aren't in Twelve and I have as much money as her now, she still manages to remind me of her breeding. _Excuses_ and _company._ The secret dance of the wealthy. Each word a masquerade, sliding away the truth like a dealer stacking the deck.

Her home is dark. Ahead, the shadowed outlines of a plush white rug and seating. To my left, a hallway and the sleek lines of kitchen countertops and glinting appliances. To the right, another hallway leading into shadow. The impression of silver and white and money.

The space is dominated by floor to ceiling windows at the far end, the night sky a deep blue, the ghost of neon lights from the flashing parties below pulsing weakly this high above ground, curling and unfurling like flowers of violet and yellow and pink.

It surprises me when Madge toes off her heels and sets down her beaded bag with a clatter. She glides around the room, gently flicking on lamps. Her form is reduced to velvet and the gleam of bones in the soft light.

I had forgotten how tiny Madge is, quite short without her ubiquitous heels. She looks fragile and small, her dress too long now, clicking and pooling on the floor. Her shoes must have been uncomfortable. There are red lash marks crisscrossing her toes. She curls and uncurls her toes in the fluff of the carpet.

I haven't moved from the doorway. I stand perfectly still, just watching.

"What do you want to know?" Madge asks, her gaze steady on a point above my right shoulder. I'm somehow glad she doesn't waste time with more pleasantries.

Her eyes are open and clear, her straightforward gaze startles me. I had expected the drowsy Madge from before, all cryptic words and sideways glances, face closed tight like a chest of jewels.

I'm not prepared to have my pick of questions answered.

 _How could you do this?_ _How could you allow it?_ She is Madge Undersee, damn it. Ice queen and top of her class and too good for any of this. Better than drugs and men and above the depravity of this world. The words are on the tip of my tongue.

"Are you in trouble?" I blurt out instead, and I feel a hot flash of surprise.

"Trouble?" The word comes out in a startled puff of air, half relief and half laugh.

She turns away and walks further inside. Her fingers trail along the edge of an ivory couch.

"No. I don't think I'm in trouble," her voice is light.

The laugh in her voice is like gall. I feel my fists clench.

"All that shit last night with Haymitch and Plutarch. The drugs. _That_ _man_." My voice is like a saw cutting through bone. "Explain that, if it is not trouble." My hands are shaking.

"Ah that," she says, her eyes sliding past mine. "I'm not sure I know where to start."

"How about from the beginning," I grind out. My voice sounds caustic even to me.

She plucks a slim cigarette from a silver bowl on the coffee table. She lights it with a quick flick of silver and flame and inhales deeply.

"Would you like one?" she waves her hand in offer.

"No." The word is hard. I won't be distracted.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't." Her eyes are thoughtful, staring into the distance.

"Madge." My voice is laced with warning.

"Oh would you come sit down," she says with a bit of exasperation. "I'll tell you everything, but my neck is hurting trying to stare up at you."

My steps are stiff and harsh and I can't seem to relax. I sit on the very edge of a white couch. A part of me is ashamed, afraid of dirtying the pristine fabric. I haven't been near a coal mine in years. I have money and fame and move armies with the sweep of my pen, but I'm still afraid of dirtying the Mayor's daughter's things. Some habits are hard to break.

Madge matches my movements, perching herself delicately on the other end of the couch. She is about as far from me as possible.

She speaks suddenly. "I guess it all starts with a debt."

"A debt?" I don't know what she means. She blows out a line of smoke.

"Not a real debt I think. No one would have held him to anything. I mean I certainly don't blame him." She isn't making sense.

"Blame who?" I speak slowly. I want to understand.

"Haymitch, of course." She is doing it again, looking at a point over my right shoulder.

"Haymitch?" I wish she would explain. I wish she would just look at me.

"Yes I suppose it all started with him." She looks away again. She looks at anything but me. "He was in the Hunger Games with my aunt, you see. My mother's twin sister. And she died and he lived and I guess he felt he owed us something. My mother, her family I mean."

Madge looks thoughtful, almost like she's forgotten I'm in the room.

"Haymitch and your mom?" The image is strange to me. I had only seen Mrs. Undersee a couple of times, but I remember her sickly and thin, frail and shuffling like a ghost in the back hallways of the house. I remember a wild halo of hair and high cheekbones drowned in silk and ruffles. I can't imagine her knowing Haymitch, dark and rough and coal-creased.

"Oh yes. He looked out for her. Or tried to. I wasn't around in those days but apparently he was quite good to her. And she was good to him too. Helped him set up his home in Victors Village if you can believe it. They liked to talk about Aunt Maysilee together."

She lets out another long line of smoke. I've never heard Madge speak so much.

She looks down.

"Then Haymitch discovered alcohol and mom met dad. They still looked out for each other though." Her voice hitches. "He was the one who first brought morphling to Twelve. For her headaches."

"Haymitch got your mom addicted to morphling?" My outrage is palpable. As though I couldn't hate the bastard more.

Madge shrugs. "It helped her. Made her happy. It killed me and dad though. When she was high she would forget about Maysilee. She would forget other things too, forget about m-."

Madge stops suddenly. Her eyes dart to me and then away. Her face ices over suddenly, smooth as marble, cool and unreadable. She stubs the cigarette into a glass tray on the table, the soot looks strange on her fingertips.

"Anyway Haymitch still hung around. Him and dad got along. Had similar ideas about things." She stands and walks towards the windows. She lifts silver knick knacks and sets them down without purpose, restless.

"What?" I don't believe her. I had never seen Haymitch around the Mayor's house or his office. The only time I saw them together was on stage for the Reaping. Even then the Mayor could barely look at Haymitch, his eyes roving over him and past him and through him, never at him.

"Oh they were very secretive. Dad was always a bit rebellious, you know. He was smart, smarter than Haymitch I always thought. He toed the line with the Capitol. Somehow managed to get selected Mayor. He never believed in outright rebellion, knew it would fail. But he did what he could."

She pauses for a long moment. Then, "He kept Twelve tiny and quiet and small. Eventually loosened the rules. He took down the gallows. He even bought game from poachers." She throws a sly half smile in my direction.

Her words are surprising. Deep within me though, something rings true. I always wondered about the other Districts I saw during the war. Everything was bleak and barren, so tightly controlled. Locked down with tanks and barbed wire, watch towers and sleepless peacekeeper patrols. I always thought Twelve was something of a joke, too insignificant for any real Capitol attention. But we produced coal, powered the whole damn country. Yet somehow we escaped the notice of the Capitol. The ideas are incongruous.

"Haymitch wanted to do more." Madge is still talking. She is looking at her feet. They are curling and uncurling again in the carpet, perfect pale arches and toes. Open and close. "He had more contacts in the Capitol, knew the other victors. He used to use me to help him. I thought it was a game."

I can hear the blood rushing in my ears.

She sighs. "No one suspected a child, the quiet Mayor's daughter. They thought I only cared about new ribbons and _pretty dresses_."

My eyes narrow, but she doesn't look at me, doesn't drive home the dig with her cool gaze.

"I'd listen at doors, rifle through papers. We'd meet up in the town square. He'd buy alcohol and I'd buy candy and no one knew the difference."

She won't turn around. Won't look at me. But I want to see her eyes, want to see if I can see truth in them.

"I thought no one knew the difference."

I will her to look at me.

She closes her eyes.

"I was such a fool," she says.

How white she looks. The shadows under her eyes are smudged purple.

I can't tell.

I can't tell where the lies end and the truths begin.

Is her weariness real? Margaret. Madge. Em. She dons and sheds personalities like dresses. Even as a child she wore a mask, playing with her dolls and listening through doors. Hiding secrets in her basket of sweets. Glassy eyes and hidden smiles, shifting behind cigarette smoke screens and distorted behind the bubble of a martini glass. Hiding under a nest of blankets, secrets and silence in a dark hospital room.

And I'm always there, trying to find the truth. Trying to pry it from her like a pearl from an oyster.

Perhaps, I think, she can't help it. Her mother, her father, her aunt. It is in her blood. Breeding and betrayal. Half truths and half lies.

"Haymitch never told me about the plan at the Quarter Quell." Her words are tired. "He didn't warn us the Capitol would attack, didn't give us a chance to run." She stops.

I can feel my frustration building, tight in my throat. _Look at me_.

"So Haymitch used you and betrayed you. No surprise there."

I can't unclench my fists. I want to stand up. I want to shake her.

"The question is why you are letting him do it again, Madge. Why are you letting him _whore you out?_ "

She whips around, and finally she looks at me.

"Is that really what you think of me?" Her chest is heaving, the pulse pounding in the arc of her throat.

 _Yes_. The thought comes unbidden. In my mind's eye I see her luscious sway. Her eyes heavy lidded and glazed. A smooth white shoulder flirtatious and exposed as her wrap slips down.

Her jaw tightens as I hesitate. Without her shoes, Madge's dress drags on the floor. With her hair ruffled and her makeup wiped off, she seems a child. A girl playing dress up in her mother's clothes.

Or perhaps a puppet, dressed up by Haymitch and tangled in strings.

"No." I say it out loud. Her eyes pin me down with their intensity.

"I don't know," I amend. "I... I don't know who you are, Madge."

She stares at me for a moment, measuring, analyzing.

"I don't know either sometimes," she says finally. Her shoulders slump.

"Why are you still with him, Madge? I don't understand."

Madge looks down. Her fingers are gripping the back of a chair. Her fingertips are white.

"He's all I have." She answers in a small voice. It's the first real sign of weakness I've seen from her, ever. I don't know how to respond.

"They came for me, before the bombing of Twelve." Her words are soft and her eyes in shadow. "Blindfolded me, put me on a train. Took me to that prison."

Her eyes squeeze shut. There is a pained expression on her face.

"You can imagine what happened there. That place where you found me."

"And your parents?" I ask. The question hangs in the air.

Outside the window, day has started to break. Pink light blushes Madge's skin. It must have started to rain. The window is jeweled with droplets.

"They kept asking me about that damned pin." Madge whispers, and her voice cracks.

"Pin?" I feel like I'm back in the mines, only seeing what my lamp lights in front of me, dim and disoriented, missing the whole picture.

"The Mockingjay pin," she says quietly. Something clicks in my brain.

"That was you?" I'm incredulous. And angry. Katniss was destroyed because of that fucking pin.

"Yes. They all thought I was so clever." Her hands spasm, almost like she is reaching for another cigarette. She stops herself. "They thought I gave her that pin on purpose, with a rebellious symbol. That maybe Haymitch supplied the pin to me."

The rain droplets on the window cast dabbled shadows across Madge's face. They bead like tears.

"I just wanted to give my friend a gift. I didn't mean for it….It didn't mean anything." Her voice is so bleak. "They wouldn't accept that it didn't mean anything." Her voice is a pained whisper.

The pinkish dawn lights up behind Madge. Her pale hair lights up like a halo. Her lashes cast long shadows along her cheeks.

"I thought of you when I was down there, you know." I can barely hear her. Maybe I'm mistaking her words. She pulls her fur around her and hunches, as though she is suddenly cold.

"You are the only person I ever saw tortured."

I remember a whistling whip, the feel of skin splitting down my back. White hot pain and black seeping into my vision.

"You never broke." She pauses. "Not like me."

The pain of that whip. I had wanted to die.

I don't know what to say. Madge talking about me this way, it makes me feel something strange my stomach. She won't look at me.

"I thought I would die down there," she says. A strange echo of my thoughts. She lets out a little laugh. "If a person can die of devastating loneliness."

Her face clears and she turns towards me. "I never thanked you by the way. For saving me."

No one has ever thanked me before. Not for anything I've done in the war. Not once.

I hear a strange ringing in my ear. I feel almost faint.

"Thank you, Gale. For saving me." The sunlight glows behind her, setting fire to her hair. I can't see her face.

I feel like I should say something. She just stands there, facing me. I want her to know it was just a job. I didn't save her on purpose. It was war, and I killed so many people, and clearing that prison was just the next thing I had to do. I want to tell her I'm not a hero, not a good guy. That there is a reason no one has ever thanked me. The thoughts stutter in my head. My lips won't move.

After a long minute, she turns back to the window. My tongue feels fat in my mouth.

Her voice turns businesslike. "Haymitch is a sort-of guardian now. He took me from the hospital, deleted my records. Helped me start over." She pauses. "And now he is helping me find the men who hurt me…and others."

My brain falters. Her words are one shock after another. I can't keep up.

Her voice hardens, her words quick and clipped, hard as bullets.

"Paylor's spies can't get near them. Even Plutarch and Haymitch can't get these guys to trust them. But a little girl, drugged and pliant…" Madge releases a bitter bark of laughter. "I give them a touch, a glance. Their arrogance makes it easy. Men like them have underestimated me my whole life."

I feel dizzy. I can't catch my breath.

"They get me alone, and I slip them some drugs. It's easy then, to go through their files. Take information from any digital devices. Like stealing candy from a baby." Her lip curls.

"So those drugs you're injecting, that's all an act?" I am still confused, my world tilting on its axis.

She stills.

"No those are just a perk of the job. I carry the antidotes with me at all times."

"So a man gets you alone. You take an antidote and then drug him instead?" My brain feels slow and stupid.

Madge nods jerkily.

The kaleidoscope in my head finally settles into place. But…

"Madge, there is no way you can get to the antidote every time. Not if you're drugged. Or what if he doesn't let you go, give you a chance…"

Horror spreads through me.

Madge paces restlessly, first one way and then the next. Finally she turns back to the coffee table and reaches for a cigarette. Her hand does not tremble.

"I'm pretty quick." Her voice is steady as she lights it. "But no, of course I can't get the antidote every time." She says it like it is nothing.

"But then what happens? Do they ra- ? Do they… hurt you?" I can barely say the words.

She is looking at the same spot, just above my right shoulder.

"It's just a body, Gale." She blows out a line of smoke. _Oh, Gale_.

"You can't mean that, Madge." She can't.

"Sometimes it's better that way." Her words are light and hard, perhaps meant to drive me away. "Men are always more forthcoming when they think they've conquered you. It makes them feel strong, putting their hands on you, like planting their flag in some uncharted territory."

There is lead in my stomach. I can't swallow.

"They love to talk after. Tell you about all of their other _conquests_."

Perhaps she is trying to regain some kind of control, sliding into the comfort of insults and cruelty. For a girl made of masks, she revealed a lot this evening. The way she can change, it makes me dizzy. Her face switching personae, a gleam of one and then another, flashing like the facets of a gem.

"And you. You're just like them. You think I'm helpless, weak. And right when they think they've possessed me, I destroy them."

Her smile is vicious.

"You asked me why I do this. Well, the drugs are nice. But revenge…" Her smile is all teeth, savage and bright. "Revenge is divine."

"I don't think you're weak." The words slip out, formed before the thought.

Madge tenses.

I remember my words, was it only a few nights ago? _Just like every other Townie…fucking weak_.

I stand up and take a step toward her.

"Madge, I don't think you're weak." My words are honest. I reach a hand toward her, just as a reflex, to reassure her.

She turns from me suddenly and inhales deeply.

"Anything else you want to ask me?" Her voice is leaden. "Or are we done?"

There are so many questions, rattling like dice in my head. Which should I fling out, hoping for truth, hoping for luck.

A pause.

"Why did you disappear?" My voice cracks.

I watch her face, a distorted reflection in the window. Her brow furrows.

"I told you. I wanted to start over." Her answer is laced with a question.

"But why didn't you tell me?" I have to know. My voice sounds desperate, even to me. "I searched for months, maybe years. I looked everywhere."

The shock blazes on her face for only an instant, but it is enough. Later I would not be able to erase it from my mind, the perfect O of her mouth, the mask shed and the truth behind it revealed.

"I… I didn't think." She stutters. "I didn't think to tell you. I didn't think you cared."

…

Comments and criticisms always appreciated!

-Fly


	6. Chapter 4

…

— **Interlude Two: A Piano —**

When Madge Undersee is six years old her father takes her by the hand. She remembers his hands, later. Warm and large and soft like new bread. He looks at her with gentle eyes, and it makes Madge grin.

He brings her into the formal living room, and Madge feels special. She is not allowed into this room unless the strange, beautiful people from the Capitol are visiting. Mother and father are always tense and distant during the visits, and Madge finds she can't enjoy her best dresses or prettiest shoes with bows when everyone is acting so strangely.

But today her father is smiling and holding her hand softly, like it is precious to him. He leads her to the grand piano, nestled by the large windows. It is sleek and black and daunting. He lifts her up to the bench, and her feet dangle above the floor.

"Alright, Em. It's time you start learning to play music. Would you like that?" He asks her. His voice is kind and his hand on her back is warm. Madge nods eagerly.

He smiles at her, one of their secret smiles, and Madge glows.

"In that case sweet girl, let me tie your hair back. You can't have this golden waterfall blocking your view." He pulls back her hair with his large hands, laughing when the shorter pieces in front just won't stay back. Madge laughs too. She loves when her father laughs.

He teaches her some scales, and Madge tries her best to pay attention. On the third try she repeats the scales perfectly, and her father laughs again, his teeth flashing.

"I have to get back to work, but keep practicing, Em. Nice and loud so your mother can hear you upstairs. " Her father squeezes her shoulder and gets up from the bench. Madge nods eagerly, pushes her hair back, and plays the scales again and again.

Out of the corner of her eye, Madge sees that her father doesn't leave the living room right away. He stands in the corner listening to her and smiling. Madge bangs the keys nice and loud. Maybe her mother is upstairs listening. Maybe she is smiling too.

Madge plays the scales a few more times, and then peeks at her father again. He is whispering with Uncle Haymitch. Madge had not noticed him come in. Her father isn't smiling anymore.

Madge keeps playing. Maybe if she plays loud enough, she thinks, they will notice her and smile.

...

— **Five And a Half Years After the War —**

Rain always reminds me of Twelve.

Our lives were dictated by its sprinkles and storms. A heavy rain meant full-bodied streams, overflowing with slippery silver-flashing fish. Relentless night rains soaked the dark earth, mushed and loamy, and within a day mushrooms brown and grey and white would push through the soft ground, plump and inviting. A warm spring mist signaled juicy red strawberries in summer, heavy and fragrant on the bush.

The forest was lush in the rain, cool and quiet. The gentle pat of the drops were fat on flat leaves. The air smelled earthy and alive.

Katniss hated the rain. She would blink angrily, drops beading on her lashes, scowling and squinting, trying to aim at squirrels or geese through the grey curtains of drops.

And I would smile secretly, fondly, at the thunderclouds in her gaze.

Rain meant water and food. It meant Posy burrowing tight into my chest at night, clinging to me with her hot breath and sweet, sticky fingers as the rain clattered against the tin roof.

It also meant Ma running in from the back, piles of laundry clutched in her arms, trying to save her day's work from the storms.

Rain meant sopping wet shoes. It meant icy trickles sneaking through every hole in my worn shirt and jacket and winding down my neck. It meant soaked hair and cold toes and our clothes sticking to our bodies as we went home to home, trying to sell whatever we had collected for the day.

It meant laughs and rueful complaints and warming ourselves by the fires at the Hob. It meant warm soup and hot water with mint leaves when there was nothing else to eat.

It meant sneezes and colds and the desperate need to hunt more, sell more, work harder to afford medicines and blankets and bones for broth.

But now mixed in the drops and scowls and cold hands on warm mugs, rain reminds me of Madge Undersee. There are faded memories of squelching up her back stairs, hunched over in the cold, handing her a bag of berries as she handed me coins with a satisfying clink, wet hair plastered to my forehead and blinking through clumped lashes.

And there is a nearer memory, her face drawn and her eyes pained, raindrop shadows flecking her cheeks like globed pearls as she whispered her deepest secrets.

It hardly rains in the New Capitol. When it does, socialites and dilettantes flood the streets, shrieking and soaked, delighted for any excuse to party, to experience something new.

I prefer watching from inside. My home is in one of the tallest buildings in the city, all glassed in. As far from the streets as I can get. Close to the sky.

Up here, I can pretend to be free.

I watch the rain, and it reminds me of home.

Home. The thought stabs me with longing. Love for my family, an ache in my chest. A mixture of happiness and struggle and loss. Something bitter but also sweet.

And as the drops trickle down the windows, an intricate panoplied network, I think of home and the kids and Katniss and now somehow of Madge too. A piece of home that isn't quite home. Something new and bitter, but also sweet.

I remember when the war was first over and people started moving back to Twelve. Everyday we would get news of dead bodies they had found. Old friends from the Seam, merchants from Town. The Mayor and his wife and daughter at home. Each one was like a knife, swift and sharp and surprising.

The news from Twelve arrived slowly, each new death tearing my heart to pieces like it was paper. Madge and her parents—their deaths were no more jarring to me than any other, each one a sudden, painful loss, filed away to be dealt with later.

But then when I found her...I'll never forget how my heart stuttered when I recognized her in that prison. Thin and bruised and terrified, but somehow still Madge.

I do not recognize that girl in Madge anymore —or in Em or Margaret, or whatever name she goes by now. I cannot reconcile the heavy lashes and lazy drawl and perfect hair with the girl I knew back home. And after our last conversation, well I don't try talk to her again. I don't know what I would say.

I don't fight it anymore, though, the urge to check up on her. To make sure she is safe.

I've added her to my list I suppose. Ma and the kids. Katniss, Peeta, and Mrs. E. Annie Odair and little Finn. And now Madge. All those I need to keep safe, though none of them have ever asked.

When it rains, I remember Madge. And then I risk a meeting with one of my spies, cash in a favor I should save for later. And they tell me what Madge is doing and how she is— each time somehow still alive, still singing her throaty songs and injecting her very real drugs and balancing her life on the edge of a knife.

Each time, I feel relief liquid in my gut.

Just one less thing to worry about.

And at odds times, not always when the rain falls, what I feel for Madge rises up unexpectedly, like a patch of thorns in the woods. Thick and tangled and complex.

Impossible to fucking escape.

The war has changed her in ways I did not suspect. But then again, it changed me too. It changed us all.

And sometimes…well sometimes I think I might go back to the bar to see her sing. Imagine I'd maybe buy her a martini and reminisce about Twelve for a few careless minutes. And if she thanks me for saving her from that prison again, maybe this time I imagine I'd say something back.

I'd say something about how I want…I want…

I want to stop thinking about her.

That is what I tell myself as I watch the rain.

...

— **Six Years After the War —**

There is something wrong with me tonight. I can't seem to wrap up my paperwork. My eyelids feel gritty with fatigue, my gaze constantly drifting to the windows, taking in the night sky. Often I try to imagine I am looking at an inky sky full of stars and sweeping galaxies rather than a blanket of fractured city lights.

The knock comes as a surprise.

I pad to the door, bare feet on the hardwood. I crack the door and see a girl.

She looks…like Madge.

Like Madge from District 12, I mean. No jewels and strappy shoes or perfectly curled hair. She looks natural and so young. She wears a casual white top and denims, no makeup. But it is her lopsided ponytail, a few strands refusing to stay tied back that take me straight back to Twelve. How we would meet at the threshold of her door, her uniform slightly rumpled after a day at school, just like this.

Katniss and I used to stop there at least once a week. It startles me to think we saw each other so often.

She bites her lip, and I realize that I have been standing here like a complete dolt and have not said a word.

Her eyes dart left and right, never quite landing on me. I hate how she does that.

"I brought you a drink," she says suddenly. She thrusts a bottle toward me, her cheeks pinking.

"Huh?" I manage to grunt. It has been almost a year since we last met, and she brought me a drink? She won't meet my eyes so I can't tell if she's joking.

"It's what you used to order, I remember." I almost think she is babbling.

But…she remembers?

I look at the bottle, and it's true. It's the same brown liquor I had ordered all those months ago. Rich and amber and inviting, with the same sprinkle of spice and gold leaf refracting in the light.

"I didn't know what else you might like…and I just thought…Well I didn't have anyone else to share with…and…"

She _is_ babbling. I feel my mouth fall open in shock.

"And…well…it is tradition to exchange gifts. Not that I expect anything…"

Her eyes are fully trained on the floor now, her fingertips white around the neck of the bottle as she clutches it out to me still. There is a blush spreading along her cheeks and down her neck, and something really is wrong with me because I can't make sense of anything she is saying.

"And well…you were the only person I could think of besides Haymitch, and I can't very well buy a drink for Haymitch." She is still going.

"Anyway…" She steels herself and pushes the bottle into my chest. "Happy Harvest Festival."

She jostles the bottle into my chest again, as if she really wants me to take it, her shoulders already half turning away from me and back towards the elevators.

Finally it clicks.

And for the first time in my life, I do something that actually isn't completely idiotic.

"Madge. Do you want to come in?" I push the door open wide.

Her breath hitches.

"No…I couldn't…" I can see the blood in her throat pounding.

"Madge. Come in."

Her eyes shift. She is nervous, and I grin.

"It would be a shame to drink this alone." I try. She is still half turned, but her eyes flit to mine. I smile. "I haven't shared a Harvest Festival drink in years. Come on."

I take the bottle, ice cold and making that lovely clinking sloshing sound, and I step back to let her in.

I'm surprised when she actually follows.

I don't tell her that exchanging gifts for the Harvest Festival was more of a Town tradition, not Seam. The grownups all might split a couple sips of something Sae brewed in her washbasin, and I would always try to get something nice for Ma and the kids if I could. But I know in Town the Harvest Festival was a chance to dust off a bottle of something special and share slow sips on the porch with neighbors.

I know because Townies were always willing to spend more when they were tipsy.

It was a good time of year for business.

But I don't say anything to Madge because she is here, and she doesn't have anyone to share a drink with this year except me. And also, this brown liquor looks delicious.

I pull out two glasses from the bar and push a button for ice. Madge looks around curiously. My place is probably nothing to her, but the size feels egregious to me. Paylor explained something about a perk of the job when she gave me the keys to this penthouse and even hooked me up with a decorator. I didn't know anything about decorating at the time, and I especially didn't trust the blue skinned, blue haired monstrosity of a designer she sent. I just told him to remove all the digital screens. I couldn't breath with all the flashing lights and moving pictures.

He did me one better with warm wood tones and soft leather couches. So different from Madge's place, all cold clean lines and gleaming, priceless art. Even her books were collectibles, with one section of her shelves chained off and secured with a silver padlock.

She examines my walls and counters that are so unlike hers— the table strewn with maps and papers, the walls and counters cluttered with photos of the kids and Ma, Posy's brightly colored art projects and Vick's delicate sketches.

I see Madge stare at a framed picture of Annie Odair and her son before turning to my bookshelves. I cringe, wishing I had some artsy books, something rare or interesting she might like instead of the military history and statesmanship books I pilfered from Snow's collection. She runs her fingers over the books on my shelf, delicate, like she's touching skin. I shiver.

She stares out of the windows, floor-to ceiling like hers. The sizzle and glitter of the city lights are laid out for her like a carpet.

I wonder if she likes it. My place.

I hand her a glass, the ice clicking gently. She smiles at me and thanks me, and we toast to the Harvest Festival.

"You have a fireplace," she says. The column of her neck twists back to me. "I haven't seen one in years."

I pause. Take a sip.

"Yes. It reminds me of home." I hold my voice steady. Now I am the one that cannot meet her eyes. It is silly, I know, but I asked the decorator especially to add a fireplace. They aren't needed in the New Capitol with the heating and cooling automated. But every home in Twelve had a hearth. A place for heating water, cooking food, a place to gather when it was cold outside.

And a place…well a place for Toasting. A place to start a new family. The foundation for a home. Madge is staring at the fireplace. I feel my neck warm.

"Do you ever go back? Home I mean." Madge hasn't noticed my discomfort.

"No." I take another sip. My answer is short. I don't want to talk about going home.

"Really?" Madge is looking at a picture of my family on the mantle. It was a gift they sent for my birthday five years ago. Ma is holding Posy on her lap on the stoop of their new house. Vick is the artistic one, likely behind the camera. And Rory, well Rory wouldn't be caught dead in a photo meant for me.

I swallow and don't answer.

"Not even…not even to see Katniss?" Madge is looking out of the window again. The fireplace, the mantle, the windows. Looking everywhere but me. I lift my glass and am surprised that my drink is finished. Just some sweating ice cubes and gold dust left behind.

"No. I haven't been back to Twelve. I'm getting a refill." I turn and force myself to walk steadily to the bar. I pour myself a top up and am surprised when I see Madge has followed. She hands me her glass silently. Her drink is finished too.

Madge accepts her drink and takes a sip. Katniss liked that about her, I remember. She was always quiet, never pushed or pried. Katniss always hated the other kids in Twelve and their mindless chatter. But Madge's silence has always put me on edge, made me feel uncomfortable and unsure.

And she brought up Katniss. I can't remember the last time someone talked about her with me. The last time I really thought about her.

"It's too painful." The words fall out before I can stop them. I take a drink to cover up my slip.

"Yes I can imagine," Madge answers and turns back towards the windows.

 _She can imagine?_ A surprising flash of rage licks through me.

"I don't think you can imagine, _Undersee_ ," I growl. I take a vicious satisfaction in using her surname, her father's name. How many times did I rage against old man Undersee in the woods? Until his name became a profanity.

Katniss was my right hand. A lung I needed to breath. No one knows how many times she saved me, how much I depended on her. Not Madge. Not any damn person but Katniss and me. I feel myself shaking, fist clenched around my glass until I feel the sharp edges of crystal digging into my skin, and I'm surprised how hard I have to try to hold it together. Madge is staring at a spot over my right shoulder.

There is something building inside of me. It swells up like rage, but it is not rage. It is something more painful, something sharper.

Madge has no idea what I felt hunting the forest alone, watching Katniss get hurt, watching her fight for her life. How _helpless_ I felt.

I was there for all of it. I had to watch Katniss slowly break apart, watch Snow fracture off a bit of her at a time, pry her apart piece by piece by piece until she was a shell, her heart cracked like an egg and her mind soft and scrambled. Something is snapping inside of me. And Madge's eyes are on that damn spot above my shoulder.

I wonder what is back there that is so fascinating.

The feeling keeps building, higher and higher. It feels like grief or anger.

"You don't know anything about me and Katniss. You have no _damn_ idea— "

 _Anguish_. The feeling crests through me, and I can feel it stab my heart like a knife.

I break away from Madge and turn to the window. The pain squeezes my chest. My breath sounds loud in my ears.

"You still love her." Madge meets my eyes in the reflection of the glass. She says it like it is fact.

"Love her?" My laugh comes out on a jagged puff of air.

Katniss. I had loved her for so many years. My best friend and hunting partner. What did I even imagine would happen with us? We'd marry and have a few kids, teach them to hunt and mine and take tesserae, just like our parents taught us? Teach them that chewing on mint lives staves off hunger and that stewing dog for a few hours makes the meat tender enough to eat. Did I really dream of having a family with her and having them live the same painful, intolerable lives we lived? It was a childish dream, and idiot's dream, what I longed for with Katniss.

And when I needed my friend most, she betrayed me. I should have known she would choose her own survival over mine. I remember getting captured, the Peacekeepers squeezing back my arms, slugging me in the face, the pain and fear sour in my mouth, hot breaths and panic and _fucking shoot me Katniss_. All she did was stare at me, eyes wide. And I remember thinking—now you love me too much to hurt me? Now, when I need you to be ruthless.

"Madge, I don't love Katniss— I kind of hate her." I take a long pull from my glass. "Damn, did you slip a truth serum in here or something?" I try to lighten the mood.

She ignores my joke. "You hate Katniss?" Her eyes slide towards me.

"There was a moment, Madge, when I needed her. Needed her to... kill me." I hate how my voice chokes. "The deadliest, coldest girl I have ever known, when she needed to be. But when it came to me… when I needed her... " I had been screaming at her, as loud as I fucking could, across that Capitol street. It was the only moment in my life I had wanted to die. It sounds foolish when I say it aloud though. I don't know how to convey the gravity of Katniss's betrayal.

"You hate Katniss because she didn't kill you?" Madge asks, her eyes calculating. "Most would say she did you a favor."

"I was being dragged to a Capitol prison. I think you'd agree that death is preferable." I tip my glass back again.

It is not until I look back at Madge and she is utterly still that I realize I have said something cruel.

"Madge—," I start, feeling myself flush.

"Yes." She says; her voice is hollow. "I would have chosen death."

"I betrayed Katniss too." The words just slip out. "We were shit friends to each other, in the end." A bomb goes off in my mind. I see a flash of Primrose smiling and stop. I won't go there tonight. Not ever again.

I turn to Madge and drain my drink. "Katniss and me. That's just a long line of mistakes and what ifs. There is nothing for me in Twelve." Nothing but regret.

"What about your family?" Madge is there with the bottle. When did that happen? She refills my glass and her glass, and I feel dizzy.

"My family?" I repeat, and my heart clenches.

Madge hums and lays back on the couch. Her eyes are glazed and she is starting to blur around the edges. I stumble to sit on the chair opposite and think maybe I should quit drinking.

"Don't you miss your family?" Her smile unfolds lazy and catlike, relaxed. She is drunk too.

I squeeze my eyes closed, as hard as I can.

"I used to—." I don't know how to say it. I look down, and the hand holding my drink is shaking. "They don't want me back, Madge." I hate how my voice cracks, and I take a drink to cover up that I'm drunk.

Her eyes flick to mine.

"I've tried everything." My voice is shaking too. "I call, write. They answer, talk to me. But never ask me to come. Never visit."

When I was a kid Ma would brush my hair back, her calloused hands scratchy and comforting. She used to smell like laundry soap and flour, and she would wrap me tight in my blanket before I would sleep at night. _My first born,_ she used to say. _You'll always be my baby son._

I don't understand. I don't understand what I did to make her leave me.

"I used to let Plutarch dress me up. Put me in propos and on the television, anything to get them to see me, think about me. But they never asked me to come home." There is something hard building at the back of my throat. I swallow it down. "They don't want me back in Twelve. No one does."

I drain the drink. Some of the gritty gold leaf catches in my throat, and I cough wetly. I reach for the bottle, but it is empty.

"Do you hate them too, then? Like Katniss?" Madge sounds hesitant. I am shaking my head. I feel like I've been cut open, and all my insides exposed. Like I have no skin left.

"I love them so much it hurts, Madge."

It does. Like a physical weight on my chest. How much more should I drink to make it go away?

"It must be lonely." Madge is looking at me, and her eyes are sad.

Of all the cold looks and biting comments, all the clever little snipes and half truths and hiding, Madge looking at me, with her eyes sad like that— it is the most pain she has ever inflicted. Piercing through me and finding the truth.

"And your parents?" I don't know why I keep asking her. _That bastard Undersee_. That's what we would call him in the mines.

Madge looks stricken. And I swear her eyes are wet.

What is wrong with me? Why can't I stop being cruel to her?

She is the only one here after all these years, the only one who has come to see me, and I keep hurting her. It has been six years, and I still only know how to cause pain.

"Shit. Madge— I shouldn't have asked." I try to go to her and stumble hard, my knees hitting the wood floor with a lancing pain.

"Don't. Don't do that." Madge's eyes are closed. Her lashes tremble. That sadness I felt earlier clogging in my throat, I see it in her.

"What?" What did I do now? Everything is spinning.

Madge is taking deep breaths in and out. It is some kind of monumental effort. She swallows. Her lashes stop trembling. She opens her eyes, and they are dry.

"Don't be nice to me." Her voice has iced over.

"How do you that?" I suddenly feel so tired. My head falls back onto the seat of the couch.

"Do what?" Madge blinks at me.

"Turn off like that. Shut down." She can turn off her pain like flipping a switch. I wish I could do that.

I am so tired that I feel heavy, my brain is fuzzy and slow and sloshy.

The pain. How do I hold it back now, with my defenses down? I wish she would tell me.

"You don't want to know." She whispers.

"Tell me anyway," I whisper back. I have never wanted anything so much in my life.

"Close your eyes. Slow your breathing. Concentrate." Madge is murmuring.

My eyes drift closed. I feel exhausted. Maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight.

"I want you to imagine a soldier. The biggest one you can." Madge's words hum through me.

I don't want to think about soldiers or bombs, that's the last thing I want to think about.

Her voice is smoother than the alcohol, and just as drugging. I feel loose and tingly drunk. I can't hold on to her words, I don't want to anymore. I just want to sleep.

I let her voice flow over me, cool like dipping into a stream. And her words slip away like silk through my fingers.

...

— **Interlude Two: A Piano Continued —**

When Madge Undersee is twelve years old her father slips onto the piano bench where she is playing a delicate, tripping sonata. Her fingers are nimble now, honed by hours of daily practice. Madge loves when her father comes to watch her play, it is so rare anymore. But still, she wants to please him. Hours and days and weeks of practice, so he might be proud of her for one small moment.

"Play something happy, Em." He pauses. "Something loud…so your mother can hear."

Madge stops. She knows her mother has just had her afternoon dose of morphling. She will be insensate for the for the next eight hours, wrapped in a sleepy pile of blankets and torpor. She cannot possibly hear Madge play.

But Madge has not seen her father in several days, he always works so late and is so tired. So Madge smiles at him and picks up somethings bright and brash and cheerful, and she plays it loudly the way he likes.

"Madge," he whispers, so soft she almost thinks it is her imagination. She fumbles, and the notes clink odd and discordant. She feels her father shift on the bench.

"Keep going, darling." His voice is loud again. "Nice and loud now. Don't hesitate."

Madge feels a nervous energy flutter through her and begins to play, fingers hard on the keys, brows furrowed.

"Madge," her father is whispering again. "Keep playing." His voice is breath, light as a feather.

Madge feels dampness on her palms, unsure of what is happening, suddenly afraid.

"I know what you're doing with Haymitch." The words startle her, and she stumbles over the notes. She darts a look to her father, and his face is stone. She takes a hasty breath and keeps playing.

"The Capitol is always watching, always listening." She feels his body heat next to her, his breath warm on her ear. "You can't let them see. Not ever."

Madge can't concentrate. Her hands are moving, but she can't remember the notes. She presses hard on the keys, her fingertips have gone numb. She thought she had been so sneaky, so clever.

"I will teach you how to hide. Just keep playing."

The song is almost over. Should she play it again? Her underarms are damp. She can't seem to breathe in enough air.

"Is that what you do?" She is ashamed how her voice is shaking.

"Yes." The word evaporates like breath on glass.

The piece is finished. Madge wipes her sweaty palms on her legs and begins again.

"Close your eyes. Slow your breathing. Concentrate." Her father is murmuring.

Madge tries to hold her breath, tries to slow down. Fear is squeezing her chest and she can't get enough air.

"I want you to imagine a boulder." He is still whispering. Keep playing, Madge thinks, I must keep playing. "The biggest boulder you can. All its bumps and crevasses, how large and rough it is, how it smells mossy and cool. Fill your mind with this boulder." Madge has never been so scared in her life. She can't focus on the boulder.

"I want you to lift this boulder. Feel its weight in your arms and the sweat on your brow." Madge certainly feels the sweat.

"Think of everything you want to hide, every secret." Madge thinks of pilfered documents and whispered conversations and a wicker basket of lollies.

"Now put the boulder in front of them." There are too many secrets, and Madge can't focus. Her boulder is too small.

"Now imagine cement. Feel its wetness and grittiness. Feel its coolness on your hands, squishing between your fingers. Feel yourself slathering cement on your boulder, stretching to cover all the sides. Let it be the only thing in your mind." Madge is still a few steps behind. She is still trying to gather all her secrets.

"Take another boulder and add it to the first. Focus so hard you cannot think of anything else, just this task. We are going to repeat this over and over until you can build a wall."

She can't do it. She is too scared and the song is almost over and she can't play it again and breathe and close her eyes and imagine a boulder and process the danger and the fear, and she can't. She wants to be sick and she wants to cry and she wants to stop playing.

The tears come and her fingers freeze. She burns with shame.

"Your piano. I want you to practice every day." Her father's voice sounds loud in the silence. Madge turns to look at him, and his eyes are boring in to hers, trying to tell her something. They hold an intensity she has never seen. "Em, you'll never make it if you don't practice every day." He smiles at her then, a fake, half-sort of smile, and leaves her alone.

Madge bows her head and cries.

Then she takes a deep breath. And another one. And then Madge Undersee spends the rest of the afternoon building walls in her mind.

…

Comments and criticism are always appreciated.

-Fly


End file.
